The Winter of the Ubume
by lalunaticscribe
Summary: I know for a fact that yōkai exist, that my grandfather faced off against a yōkai and won, and that, from the moment my mother married my father, the Katsuki family would never escape that world. Tl;dr: Yuuri is super strong in a career that demands flexibility. Snow and ice follows Victor everywhere. And no one knows why the Russian Yuri has yōkai coming after him...
1. 開幕: 初雪

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **開幕** **:** **初雪**

❅ **Yuuri❅**

"My name is Katsuki Yuuri," I said, or tried to say. "I'm a figure skater certified by the Japan Skating Federation. Currently... twenty-three years old. Please take care of me!"

"Hi, Yuuri!" Everyone around me spoke up in this open-air pavilion in Kamakura, Kanagawa.

"My name makes me sound strong, but I finished last at my first Grand Prix final. I still can't accept what happened!" My mouth moved by itself, spilling my entire life story up to being forced to get out of Hasetsu by my sister to this awkward party of- "I even moved to a training facility in Detroit and worked hard to make it to the final. But the pressure had me binge-eating before the match, and our family dog died, so I was at my worst both physically and mentally!"

"Ah, I see," the host of this pot-luck party smiled at me. She was extremely elegant in her ginkgo-leaf _furisode._ That is, if you wanted to knowingly sleep with a life-eating _yōkai_. "That's sad. Did you not have faith in your strength? After all, you inherited the Ôbō-Jikara. I'm fairly sure you could have managed any physical feat."

Yes, this is a party of _yōkai._ I'm the only human here! I'm seriously scared! Mari-neechan, why'd you make me come here?! Why did I have to magically go from Hasetsu to Kamakura? Even for _yōkai_ there's got to be a limit!

"Yes, this is my first time coming to Kamikakushi. Thank you for having me, Kyō-sama."

"Not at all, since Kuchisake-san brought you along." Kyō-san paused. "This is a great opportunity too introduce professional sports, anyway. It's almost like cheating. After all, there is no human who could match a _yōkai_ in feats of strength, speed, magic or intelligence."

"Yes, I agree," I smiled. "But I'm human, Kyō-sama. Mari-neechan... might have abandoned the human world for the _yōkai_ world, but I'm going to live as a human."

"With the Ôbō-Jikara?" Kyō-sama smiled. I was even more terrified under her smile than I was on the rink, in front of a huge audience. "That would be hard. I heard that you're searching for a job."

For everyone who cheered me on just because I'm from Hasetsu! I can't explain this to each of you, but I'll go ahead and explain this in my head, okay?

It started in the Showa era with my maternal grandfather, the founder of the family _onsen_ , Yū-topia Akatsuki. In a deep winter of the post-war years, he took in out of kindness a baby from an Ubume _._

For people who don't know, an Ubume is a type of scary _yōkai_ born when a woman dies in childbirth. The legend of the Ubume was generally as follows:

When walking along the road at night, you would find a beautiful woman holding a baby and she would ask you to hold the baby. Now, if you refused, the Ubume herself would kill you. If you held the baby, it would grow heavier and heavier. And if you couldn't keep it up to the end, you would be crushed to death by the baby's weight.

Isn't it scary?

Luckily, my grandfather survived the terrifying trial, fleeing through a blizzard and typhoon to his house with the baby all the way to his house.

The Ubume, moved by his kindness and determination, gave him possession of the good fortune that let him create our family's Yū-topia Akatsuki. She also gave him and his descendants a special power, the legendary Ôbō-Jikara.

There are a number of sayings about that power, like that it gives you great strength enough to uproot even the tallest trees, and that it gives an illusion of four arms when used.

They're all true. Speaking as that man's grandson, I know for a fact that yōkai exist, that my grandfather faced off against a _yōkai_ and won, and that, from the moment my mother married my father, the Katsuki family would never be able to escape that floating world of shadows and the strange.

Mum and Mari-neechan have the same power as me, which is useful for manual work in the Onsen. And, for some strange reason, we always gain weight easily when it's cold.

I guess it's Grandma looking out for Dad, haha... before you think I'm lying, that child grew up and married my mother. So he's my father, and the mysterious Ubume that no one knows is Grandma!

So the Ubume is my paternal grandmother, and the baby rescued was my father.

Owing to a _yōkai_ , the Katsuki family gained a fortune. Due to that same _yōkai_ who was our saviour, the Katsuki family also became a family that would forever stand apart from humans.

The gift of strength turned into a curse when I accidentally broke Nishigori's face with a stray punch on my first practice.

I moved to singles specifically not to touch any partner on the ice.

On the ice, my strength has no purchase or anchor to exert a force on anything except myself, and strength meant nothing compared to the grace and flexibility that I had to work so hard for.

"Do you like figure skating?" Kyō-sama asked me again.

"Yes," I replied positively. "I'm in a slump, but I'll definitely continue onwards with skating on my own!"

Eleven months ago, I screwed up in front of my idol, and flunked my way through the skating season. It would be nearly a year now. I'm going to do it!

...Grandma, why'd you have to let us gain weight so easily?

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_


	2. 壱: 立冬

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **A/N: I'm spelling Viktor's name with a K, in the Russian way. – LLS**_

* * *

 **壱** **:** **立冬**

 **¥Yuuri**

New Year's Day is a day for family. The kitchen of Yū-topia Akatsuki doesn't open on the first of January itself. However, during the second through fourth of January, it is absolutely forbidden for normal humans to enter the premises.

Since we're a family affiliated with the _yōkai_ , every spirit this side of Hasetsu always visits for New Year's greetings. Like the legends of the Kyoto _Hyakki Yagyō_ , any ordinary human that enters a _yōkai_ gathering without protection is just asking to be eaten. So, the two worlds need to be separate for New Year's greetings – and for a taste of the Shūten Brewery's _sake_ and human _shōchū_. Mum mixed them with the bottles of _Makai-e no Sasoi_.1 None of the humans in Hasetsu has realised how literal the label was meant.

The night of the second of January, the party booths on the first floor and along the corridors of the upper floors are packed with _yōkai_. Laughter and chatting voices rose from everywhere in the manner of loud partying and continuous orders for food. The dense collective of Hasetsu's _yōkai_ generated enough demonic aura for even the least attuned human to be scared away.

"Gyahaha, Yuuri's gained weight!" The oldest _yōkai_ friendly with us laughed when I appeared before his booth and put down his latest order of _shiokara_. "So, I heard that little Yuuri went to Russia?"

"He did!" Minako-sensei nodded as she chatted with Tsuchigumo-sama. Since she was human-size and Tsuchigumo-sama's head brushed the ceiling at two stories tall, it was a nerve-wracking sight how he had managed to come in at all. The splinters of wood showed how Tsuchigumo-sama had entered – through the walls. "I'm so jealous! I haven't been to Russia since performing in Moscow so long ago~!"

...I said that normal humans knew to stay away. However, Minako-sensei has been my mother's _sempai_ in school, and she's a human born from the union of a human and an Amanojaku as well. The term ' _hanyō_ ' would describe Minako-sensei perfectly, except that human- _yōkai_ marriages don't usually work like that.

"It's cold."

"Yuuri!" Tsuchigumo-sama boomed. "Just in time! I heard that Kyō Kaigara invited you you to perform with her _kabuki-mono_ in Hyōgo."

"Eh? Kyō-sama did say that, but she's doing a New Year's dance at Mt Tâte now," I replied in confusion. "It was nice of her to give me a chance to go to one of the three holy mountains, but the inn's stretched for the New Year, and Mari-neechan can't go anyway."

Considering that Kyō-sama was probably in the _yōkai_ Yakuza, I seriously wondered about Mari-neechan's choice of friends. But there was really no other option – _yōkai_ aren't taken seriously and are kind of losers, so they might as well be Yakuza. The only way for order to exist amongst _yōkai_ was through the logic of strength – bosses and the subordinates who pay protection and run errands. One of the family would have had to make friends with a _yōkai_ boss sooner or later.

Instead of our local _suiko_ boss, though, Mari-neechan had chosen to side with the _yōkai_ from the Kai-no-Kuchi clan of Kanagawa and their _oyabun_ , Kyō Kaigara-sama. Tsuchigumo-sama was another such boss, though his territory lay closer to Lake Biwa.

"Inheriting the inn won't be bad," Tsuchigumo-sama laughed, raising a stink of the extremely strong Yashiori _daiginjō_ he was drinking. "We'll be able to drink here! The Mt Âso _yamanba_ retired and her granddaughter closed shop. There's one less drinking hole with _sake_ from the other world..."

"Tsuchigumo-sama, if you drink too much you won't be able to get yourself back home," Mari-neechan appeared, bearing a tray with glasses and more of the 'invitations to Hell'. "Maybe you'll go to Russia instead."

"Don't know that place. Trust me to fall asleep under Shōkoku-ji," Tsuchigumo-sama shook his craggy head. "Miss a lot of things. Humans!"

"By the way, old man, you've paid for that squashed couch, right?" Mari-neechan pointed at him. A human threatening a yōkai was pretty laughable, except that Mari-neechan had the Ôbō-Jikara like me, and was also one of Kyō-sama's _kabuki-mono_.

"Yes, Mari-chan," Tsuchigumo-sama nodded, giggling like it was a joke. Maybe it was. "Would you like to meet my grandson? You would make a fine granddaughter-in-law."

"You're good, Mari-chan!" Minako-sensei laughed as Mari-neechan walked away in secret embarrassment, though she was trying to keep her head high. "Ah, I'm so jealous. Why couldn't I get anything other than this face?"

It depends on luck when a _yōkai_ is born from a human- _yōkai_ marriage. The _yōkai_ lineage manifests like atavistic characteristics. In just all stories of yōkai marrying humans and vice versa, the children of these pairings are always noted to be superior to normal human children – more intelligent, physically perfect, prodigies, magic abilities, etcetera. For example, Abe no Seimei was born from the _byakko_ Kuzunoha mating with Abe no Yasuna, but he was definitely human.

Minako-sensei was another example, being definitely human though she looked really too young to be in her fifties, on a conservative estimate-

It's bad to talk about a woman's age.

...what about an athlete's age?

Figure skating is cruel to age. My muscles might be able to bench-press a car – and I've tried it in front of Phichit back in Detroit. But I was still human, and the Ôbō-Jikara could only stretch so far before I was competing not by my own strength, but the inheritance left by my grandfather.

I would never be able to live... as a normal human. To skate like Viktor.

"Happy New Year!" Tsuchigumo-sama clinked glasses with Minako-sensei, and the hall of _yōkai_ roared with them. Nobody noticed when I didn't raise my glass.

Three months later, all of them would come back for a different reason. That reason... is Viktor.

* * *

 **Viktor**

My name is Viktor Nikiforov, and I think I might have been rather hasty in coming to Hasetsu.

There is a statue of a squid eating a sea urchin outside of Hasetsu on the spring night that I had come. A chill nipped at my uncovered nose – it seems to be a common theme, that the cold would always bit at the extremities whether inside or outside of Russia. As far as I recalled, snow and ice and cold rains have followed me.

Makkachin yipped. In the desolation of the rickety train station, a peal of shutters rung out. The night hung down, perhaps alive by itself.

Japan is a magical place, isn't it.

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 _ **1 Unbelievably, '魔界への誘い'is an actual shōchū brand in Japan under the Mitsutake Brewery.**_


	3. 弐: 冬ばれ

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **弐** **:** **冬ばれ**

❆ **Viktor**

Years ago, before skating became my whole life, I remembered watching a film outside of Russia. The film was Japanese, it was a cartoon, and it was at the Oscars. It won an Oscar – and it deserved that Oscar, since the art was nothing short of gorgeous with the baths and the flying dragon and the creepy shadow-mask.

Hasetsu, and especially Yū-topia Akatsuki, seemed to me like a tiny slice of that bathhouse and its surroundings in April. In fact, the town itself seemed encroached upon by the twirling steel dragons of the Japanese rail system. The giant metal behemoths are monsters of punctuality, that they are, but compared to the town and its idyllic coastal spring breezes they were even more fearsome.

To my great relief, the man behind the counter did not resemble Baba Yaga in any way.1 He was in fact a little bald wrinkly smiling man with spectacles. He wore a dark blue jacket over a shirt and vest and bow-tie combination, which seemed old but suited him and his bottle-cap glasses.

" _Irasshaimase_ , welcome to Yū-topia Akatsuki!" The little bald wrinkly smiling man was so different from Yakov. "Do you have a reservation?"

"No..."

"Very well. How many guests?"

Makkachin yipped.

"Ah, don't worry, we accept pets here, but, honoured guest, please remember that pets are not allowed into the hot springs."

...I am just realising that I cannot quite completely convey the nuances of the Japanese languages and its politeness in such ordinary words. How is it that Russian _mat_ can be completely composed of eloquent profanity, and yet it still fails to convey the tones of politeness and respect the entire reminder took? "One, under Nikiforov. Or two, including Makkachin."

"Very well. The hot baths are open if you prefer."

" _Spasibo_! I'll go there-" Makkachin whimpered. "-eh-"

"If you like, I'll prepare some hot water for your dog while you are bathing. Is he staying with you in the same room?"

...Japanese hospitality...

"Y- yes," I hurriedly copied the bow and followed the little bald wrinkly smiling man.

Rule One is very important, so I turned to carry my luggage-

-only to see a svelte woman with dyed blonde hair wrapped in a kerchief in a red uniform easily lifting it up over her shoulder.

"Don't worry, my daughter Mari will take care of everything," the old man laughed. "We're the last family inn in Hasetsu, you know. It's so rare to find visitors nowadays, since all the young'uns are going off to the big cities..."

With older people, the art of a conversation stems down to listening and nodding. Makkachin followed me to the entrance of the bathing quarters, after which my faithful hound could not follow to the warm depths of the open-air baths...

Perhaps I should not bore you with the details of taking a bath in the Japanese way. Or is _that_ your interest~?

The Japanese winter cannot compare to Finnish ice swimming. The Japanese waters also cannot compare to the _banya,_ but they are warming after the freak blizzard that came with my arrival. Perhaps the snow would clean up... wait, would I have time to watch the famous Japanese cherry blossoms? What were the good spots in Kyushu? I should ask Yuuri. He would tell me. After all...

The reason for my arrival came barging in – more accurately, barging out to stare at me. He was muttering something, his wide eyes made even wider. Like a snuffling little piglet, I thought.

So I held out my hand to him. "Yuuri! Starting today, I'm your coach!"

He screamed.

* * *

❅ **Yuuri**

My idol, Viktor, suddenly appeared! And he took a bath, had dinner, and fell asleep in the middle of the dining hall and bar in a loosely tied _jinbei_ from the inn.

"Yuu-kun, more of the Oniyome, please _._ "

"Ah, yes, Kashima-san," I got another bottle for the _teketeke_ hiding at the corner of the inn's open bar. "It's pretty rare to see you drink, Kashima-san."

"I got another suicide blamed on me."

"Ah... I'm sorry..."

"So," Kashima-san pointed to the other table, at which Viktor had laid himself out after dinner and drinking to a stupor. "Who's the hot foreigner?"

"Ah, he's a famous figure skater... more like a living legend."

"I heard from Akaname that he's your new coach?"

" _What_?!" A one-eyed old man shouted aloud. "Yuuri, if you like we can-"

"It's fine, Saitama-san," I assured the _hitotsume nyūdō._ "Akaname-san was joking... probably..."

Akaname-san was probably due for a dental check-up. To wash out his mouth.

"You can't trust the Russian _féya_ ," Saitama-san shook his head, causing his sole eyeball to bob up and down. "Fought a _vodyanoi_ in the '04 war. Terrible."

"Ah, he's human." I did a double-take. "And why are you here, Saitama-san?!"

"Ah, it's too cold," Saitama-san shivered. "I was coming back from the Pachinko parlour and it was freezing, so I'm hiding here 'til whichever snow fairy decides to stop their celebrations."

"Snow fairy?" I repeated. "They exist?"

Saitama-san laughed at me. So did Kashima-san, after a round of giggles. "You live in an inn patronised by _yōkai_ , and you're asking if faeries exist?!" The _hitotsume nyūdō_ giggled, nearly spilling his _shōchū_. "They don't like to be called faeries, but yes, they exist. I wouldn't remember that much, though. The only time Russians approached this far south was the Tsushima Incident.2"

"I see..." I frowned at the dated knowledge. "I'm sure Viktor is human, so he probably doesn't know about any of the Russian... faeries..."3

"Ah, not a folklorist then," Saitama-san nodded and drank half a cup in one go. It's incredible that the human world's hottest bachelor could get dismissed so easily. Then again, this is a _yōkai_ who would look the same in a thousand years, so it's entirely possible that the fleeting beauty of humans don't attract _yōkai-_ "Thought so. Too pretty."

"Saitama-san!"

"It's a joke, a joke. I'm not like Shigaraki at all."

"That guy is never coming here! And he's all the way in Kamakura anyway!" Mari-neechan had complained once or twice about the old _tanuki_ priest conman currently haunting an Ichimatsu family. Shigaraki was the very reason why _gitsune_ , _tanuki_ and other _obake_ were no longer allowed to pay by cash at Yū-topia Akatsuki. Come to think of it, I can understand why Saitama-san thought he was a Russian... fae? Fairy. Maybe it's his silvery hair or his eyes or-

The door crashed open, far away. Running footsteps echoed, and Minako-sensei crashed into the bar with Mum. "Yuuri!" Minako-sensei jabbed a manicured finger at Viktor, raising her voice. "Why is Viktor sleeping in one of the inn's robes?!"

"H- He soaked in the hot spring and had dinner, then fell asleep..." Viktor rolled over, using the big poodle that attacked me this early morning as a full-body pillow.

"It's big news in Russia!" Minako-sensei continued. "He's taking the next season off and is considering his next move. they're also saying that when he saw the video of you skating his routine, he was struck with inspiration and decided to be your coach then."

Saitama-san started to laugh again. "That's our Yuuri!"

"Huh?" I did a double-take. "That... can't be right..."

"Viktor came here because he chose you, Yuuri," Minako-sensei repeated to me. "You brought him here! That's incredible!"

"All chances are inevitable," Saitama-san smirked.

"Saitama-san, your nose's growing."

"It's not! I'm not a _tengu_!"

I hadn't listened. Maybe it was the blood beating in my ears, but the person I've longed to emulate is right before me. More than the Ôbō-Jikara, more than this wind from the north which had blown him into my path...

A sneeze punctuated my reverie. Viktor rose, part of his loosely tied _jinbei_ slipping off his shoulder. "I'm starving... hungry..."

"Huh?" I floundered. Minako-sensei and company had fallen silent, already preparing by long habit to flee from strange humans until assured. "Um, what would you like to eat?"

"Hmm..." A corner of his lips quirked up. "As your coach, I'd like to know what _your_ favourite food is, Yuuri."

"...Eh?"

* * *

❆ **Viktor**

The kitchen of God in Europe is Sicily. Even if they're the football that gets kicked by the boot, it's a football of deliciousness.

The kitchen of God in Japan – no, wait, this is the land of eight million gods – the kitchen of the gods is in Hasetsu, Kyushu. Its speciality must be the extra-large pork cutlet bowl.

"Delicious!" I told the hostess. "Is this what God eats?"

It was the most sincere compliment I had paid.

"I'm glad you like it..." the hostess' son, and the reason I had come to Japan, fidgeted next to a woman who, while she didn't look much older than him, bore the air of a mature woman.

"Yuuri gains weight easily, so he was only allowed to eat it when he won a competition. Right?" The woman teased him.

"Oh?" I paused. "So have you eaten this recently?"

"Yes, yes." The little piglet smiled, oblivious of how he'd ruined my plans and given me a chance to consider other facets of Japan at the same time. "I eat it often."

"Why? You haven't won anything." I smiled as I picked rice grains off of my cheeks. "With that pig's body of yours, lessons would be meaningless. You need to get back to your weight at last year's Grand Prix final, at least, or I can never coach you. Until then... no more pork cutlet bowls. Okay, my little piggy~?"

So fun to tease, I thought as the piglet almost physically fell back. This strange and wonderful country might be good.

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 **1 In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a supernatural being (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. In other words, a bit like Yubaba.**

 **2 The Tsushima incident occurred in 1861 when the Russians attempted to establish a year-round anchorage on the coast of the island of Tsushima, a Japanese territory located between Kyushu and Korea.**

 **3 Yuuri is using 'yōsei' (妖精) to describe the Russian fairies, since this is a catch-all word.**


	4. 参: 冬ごもり

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **参** **:** **冬ごもり**

❅ **Yuuri**

Viktor's sudden announcement of staying for the long term needed us, at the very least, to inform the local land god. I awoke at four, long before it was even safe for humans to walk in the world again, and pulled on my running clothes. Mum caught me passing by the main entrance.

"You're going to visit the Atariûni Shrine, right?" She pushed a box of fresh mackerel into my hands. One fin twitched – for how long more, I did not know. "Bring this along. The gods look favourably along with the generosity of our gifts."

Hauling part of the day's catch easily, I set off to visit the shrine for Viktor. It was necessary; not because Viktor was going to be a resident of the place, but to prevent him from getting eaten.

Hasetsu is a coastal town by the sea, so the local gods are mainly gods of the sea and sailing, like the Sumiyoshi-sanjin. Of course, they often stay at their main shrines in the main capitals of the world. There is an auxiliary shrine dedicated to Tenjin close to the schools – more than one student had prayed there the day before exams. The lesser _kami_ , part of the _Yaôyorozu_ which were more accessible to the attuned like my family, were tucked away close to East Hasetsu, and that was where I set out to.

The shrine I sought was prefaced by a _torii_ of grey stone, set back again a copse of pine trees and other conifers amidst the older huts of the shrine-keepers. Moss grew over its top, and it lacked the accoutrements of _shimenawa_ ropes and _shide_ paper streamers that seemed to dominate the better-kept shrines. I bowed before entering through the gate, ran through it up the left of the approach-way as per etiquette. _Misogi_ was performed quickly, chilling my hands with partially melted snow before I did all the steps of praying really, really hard; tossing in a ten yen coin, ringing the bell, bow twice, clap hand twice, bow once more.

A male voice intoned: "Are you so desperate for help, that-"

"-you need to go through the steps of worship so thoroughly-" joined a female voice,

"-human boy?" They finished.

I sighed in relief, and bowed. "It's been a while. Atarime-hiko-sama, Unihime-sama."

"...Yuuri? Yuuri's back! Which generation is it now?" The female voice turned less strict.

"The second, Unihime-sama," I answered. "Mum asked me to bring the mackerel."

"Oh, it's the Katsuki boy." The male voice within the shrine mellowed. "Oi, get up! Kurogane, Shirogane!"

Two _koma inu_ twitched into being. It was hard to describe using words; one moment the shrine was unattended, and the next moment it was like the statues at the shrine gate had moved in on either side of me. They started to move the box to the back, the _honden_.

"Hiruko's such a good girl," Unihime agreed. As one of the two enshrined land gods of the Atariûni Shrine, Unihime was always more partial to girls.

"Oh? So who was it who was complaining when Toshiya-kun's boy went off to America?"

"I- it can't be helped! Atarime-hiko you idiot! Maybe it helps that you literally don't have a brain!"

"Huh? I'm not the one who has only one opening for both food and sh-"

"Ah, um..." I felt awkward just standing outside and listening as their bickering escalated. In the night where the strange and the magical reigned supreme, it was the only time that the shrine's enshrined gods could be audible – and visible, though it was kind of taboo to look upon any god in their true form. "Can I come back later? I actually came with a request-"

A thump sounded. "Of course~" Unihime's voice echoed within the shrine. "Don't pay attention to the Atari idiot, tell us."

Something shuffled within. "Damn you, Unihime... using your test is cheating..."

"You're a squid, so chopping you up for calamari is fine!"

"Ah, there's a Russian man staying in our inn for a long time, probably for months," I explained quickly. "His name is Viktor Nikiforov, and... he might not go to the mountains, but just in case, could you keep an eye out for him? Otherwise... he might be eaten. I don't want... that..."

"I see. Because most of the guests at Yū-topia Akatsuki tend to leave pretty quickly," Unihime finished my words. "He came here to be your coach, right?"

"Ah?!" I floundered. "I- I don't know..."

Atarime-hiko hummed as he butted in. "Yuuri. He's not another folklorist, right?"

"No!"

"Exorcist?"

"No!"

" _Onmyoji_?"

"Definitely not! He's from Russia!"

Atarime-hiko guffawed. "Exorcists from outside have always come in to try to eliminate us. Ah, I remember when the gods of foreign lands came in from the west, from the Imperial courts of Kara. And then we have Benzaiten and the rest now, don't we?!"1

"Atarime-hiko-sama, I don't understand what you're saying..." I coughed, trying not to sound too lost at his recollection of things that had taken place centuries before. "So, you'll keep him safe from _yōkai_ , right? He's famous in the human world, but the _yōkai_ wouldn't know him..."

"Ah, anything for our Katsuki boy." Atarime-hiko sighed. "Your Russian coach had better train you well to take on the world! That performance was disgraceful!"

"Y- You saw that, Atarime-hiko-sama?!" I started.

Shushing noises failed to conceal that the gods and familiars of the Atariûni Shrine were hiding something. "Unihime-sama too?!"

She sounded awkward. "Uh..."

"Toshiya told us when we asked why they were hanging banners of your face about," Atarime-hiko replied, matter-of-fact as the solar rays pierced the dark canopy. "Don't worry, the ground hardens after the rain.2 There's still a chance for you humans, right?"

"Uh, yes... I don't need to be possessed with good fortune, so please don't," I pleaded.

"Don't worry!" Unihime exclaimed. "Even if you fail a million more times, you can be our shrine's priest!"

"Uh, I didn't take the exam-"

" _Yuuri_." Unihime admonished. "Don't you know that divine luck comes to a human possessed by a divine spirit? You would be the strongest priest around! Strange winds have stirred, so working for us is for the best."

"Eh?" I blinked. "Is it related to the freak snowstorm yesterday? Isn't that a coincidence?"

"That coincidence was inevitable," Atarime-hiko replied. "Your companion was faithful unto the end."

"...Vicchan?" I asked. "Yes. He was already cremated and buried when I came back. Yes... he was my best friend." What's he got to do with this, I wanted to ask.

Unihime's words gave me pause. "Which is the problem."

"We cannot speak much." Atarime-hiko spoke. "There have been two coincidences. The incident of the dog in the night-time was one. The arrival of the human Viktor, is the other. Coincidences have a way of playing to the inevitable."

I started in surprise. There was nothing I could see in the _haiden_ next to the offering box, even as the sun's rays grew stronger and false dawn was spreading already. "...I don't... understand. Please tell me, Unihime-sama. I don't know!"

"Vicchan will show you the way, if you truly wish to know." Unihime finished as dawn was upon us.

As the morning light fills the shadows, unknown things no longer lurk. Strange shapes no longer hide among the trees. Mysterious voices no longer rise, from within the confines of the Atariûni Shrine.

Once again, the world is safe for humans.

Having achieved my aim but gained more questions for my trouble, I walked away from the shrine and tried to figure out what Atarime-hiko and Unihime had meant. Spirits place great emphasis on what the human world called a butterfly effect – a butterfly flaps its wings, and halfway across the world there's a tornado in America.

I had lived in Detroit, Michigan, for my training, but now and then I had heard about rink-mates who visited their parents in another state of America and were upheld or delayed by tornado season. Sometimes the disaster itself would visit Detroit, and the rink would be closed or reinforced and everyone made to stay in until the damage was done and things could be cleaned up. My point was, the coincidence involved was minimal; it was quotidian entropy, like the chance of an earthquake in Japan. There was nothing involved; just bad luck.

For a spirit, coincidence _is_ inevitable. Although, there were the rules of the _yōkai_ world to consider. I suppose if you lived forever between worlds like the _yōkai_ did, luck and destiny would seem to be the greatest obsession to give meaning to an otherwise long and unfulfilled life.

The snowstorm.

Viktor.

Vicchan.

 _Vicchan will show you the way._

"Vicchan's place?" Mum repeated when, upon returning to Yū-topia Akatsuki, I asked for Vicchan's final resting place. "Ah, it's at the cemetery. Yuuri, I know it's sad, but Vicchan was an old dog, you know."

I plastered on a fake smile. "I know. It's... just... I wanted to see where he is. And... how he is."

I stepped out with a wrapped shovel, walking the straight road down from Yū-topia before I turned left, to the mountain road that followed up the Matsuura river. A few more twists and turns led me to the improvised pet cemetery within a pine forest, where my late pet lay. Digging was hard work, but I found the little urn where Vicchan's... Vicchan...

"I'm sorry, Vicchan," I prayed, and broke the seal before looking at the collection of bones.

It was right now that I felt incredibly dumb. How would I know what to find? I didn't have forensic expertise, or any deeper expertise to figure out what was Unihime talking about.

Viktor's arrival and Vicchan's death were simply coincidences. That was it.

Having come this far, I picked and laid out all the bones carefully.

I frowned.

Much as I don't know what was missing, I was pretty sure I could recognise a skull, and it wasn't there – not even a smear of powder or a tooth.

Dad was manning the counter and talking to a man in a business suit when I came in, toting the urn along my hip. "Welcome back, Yuuri!" The smile dropped as he spotted the urn, but he could not mention it in front of a stranger. "Tanaka-san, this is my son, Yuuri. Yuuri, this is Tanaka-san. He's a persistent developer who keeps trying to buy Yū-topia Akatsuki."

"I told Katsuki-san many times that running an inn at his age is too strenuous," the man smirked at me, offering his card at my direction. "It's our first time meeting, Katsuki-kun."

"Ah, hello, Tanaka-san," I bowed out of politeness, frazzled though I was. "Please excuse me."

"Careful not to tote that macabre thing around," Tanaka-san sneered as I ran to the kitchen in the back. I found Mari-neechan on her break, which was when I dropped the urn in front of her.

"Mari-neechan," I sniffed, trying to hold back my tears. "W- Where is V- Vicchan's head?"

* * *

❆ **Viktor**

Yuuri has been distracted since one morning three days ago. His jogging apparently took him into a forest and up a mountain – wow! – and then somehow he'd brought back a jar. Makkachin is worried, but my newest protégé has been avoiding my pet between his exercise routine, ballet lessons and helping out at Yū-topia Akatsuki – if possible at all.

Did I make a wrong choice in banning him from all pork cutlet bowls until he got his weight down? Was this depression deeper than I thought?

I chose his next workout in the shadow of a square building on top of a hill that overlooked the whole town. There, in the shade of the much-vaunted cherry blossom trees of the Japanese spring, I started a conversation about his love life.

He reacted predictably. That is, with flailing and too much Japanese to transcribe. It took Makkachin barking at the square building, at which Yuuri's face twitched and just turned... well, much like his loss at the Grand Prix final.

"Do you have a pet?" I asked him.

Yuuri frowned in Makkachin's direction. "...to," he swallowed. "Used to."

"Your first pet?"

"A... poodle."

"My favourite breed!" I exclaimed. "What's his name? Why haven't I seen him around?"

"Vicchan. He died."

…

..

.

Ah.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I honestly told Yuuri. Makkachin was the latest in a series of curly-haired pets, but that did not mean that I did not mourn for my late companions. "It's... hard to bid one's faithful companion farewell."

"...he was old, and it was a while ago." Yuuri muttered, but curled in on himself and refused to say any more.

Too familiar with the grief of a pet owner, I instead turned my attention to Hasetsu. For Yuuri to come here, back to his roots, mourning his companion... it was the right choice not to let Yuuri skate for now, I told myself. Skating too much did not solve anything when my first poodle died, and it would not solve Yuuri's problem now. It is only in the grieving that Yuuri could continue.

As his... coach... I would be here for him.

So I plastered on a smile, wiped my face, and asked Yuuri about something. Anything, about Hasetsu, what it meant for him, what kind of happy memories he had made with Vicchan. And then, as Yuuri let go of the physical burden of his weight, perhaps, just perhaps, he would begin to let go of his sorrow.

Though, maybe I shouldn't have posted on Instagram that picture of me with Hasetsu Castle in the background directly afterwards... to Yuuri's parents, _prostite_!

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 **1 Buddhism has been practised in Japan since its official introduction in 552 AD according to the Nihon Shoki. The introduction of new religions in Japan, though, tended to be antagonistic to then-mainstream society first until it was entrenched – Buddhism itself was regarded as strange and the Buddhist pantheon or 'kami of foreign lands' were blamed for plagues. The monk Nichiren was also exiled for irritating the Kamakura shoguns. Benzaiten is a syncretic entity with both a Buddhist and a Shinto side.**

 **2 雨降って地固まる: a Japanese saying equal to 'adversity builds character'.**


	5. 四: 麦の根

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **四** **:** **麦の根**

❄ **Yuri**

I had traced Viktor all the way here. To this backwater town without even an airport... Hasetsu sure is a weird place. There's a statue of a squid eating a smiling sea urchin outside the station.

I would have posted the photograph, but Yakov would have found out.

"Victor's been uploading tons of pictures with this city tagged..." I mumbled to myself as I passed down a shopping district, my luggage trundling along as I dragged it behind me. My backpack swung in time to the wheels' tinny screeches, which was far more reassuring than grating in the relative hubbub of this Japanese shopping street and their fucking long alphabets and their strange characters interspaced with numbers, icons and Latin letters. Damn Japanese advertisements.

I spotted an awesome tiger sweatshirt-

-ah, I shouldn't have posted it.

True to form, ten seconds later the old man hollered over the phone in the middle of this street in Hasetsu: "YURI! WHY ARE YOU IN JAPAN TOO!"

There may have been a few more words in Russian, but translating them would be pointless – they would have to be censored.

"I TOLD YOU!" I yelled back. "I'M NOT COMING BACK UNTIL VIKTOR MAKES GOOD ON HIS PROMISE!"

That's right.

Nothing could scare me away.

Not getting lost... not the endless alleyways... not the shadows...

 _Klak-klak_.

It was just wood! Wood that fell... and bounced!

I walked some more.

 _Klak-klak_.

I whirled around, trying to peer through the shadows. In the wan sunlight, it was warm, but everything seemed much more sinister here than St. Petersburg.

This is ridiculous. It's dumb to worry about hearing noises. Stay out of strange alleyways in the future, Yuri!

I walked some more-

 _Klak-klak._

"It's not funny!" I whirled around, yelling in my best Japanese only to meet thin air. "What the hell?!"

I didn't want to move, so I focused on breathing slowly and heavily, the better to get ready-

I ran – and ran. The luggage jumped and screeched as it dragged behind me. The stupid _klak-klak_ of footsteps followed behind, just as fast and twice as persistent. Nobody was around – this is ridiculous, Japan should be packed, right? It's smaller than Russia!

I kept running and running until I'd rushed across a bridge. The shadow of some slope-roofed castle loomed in the horizon, next to the sun hanging low in the sky. _This_ was the fatty's hometown?!

No wonder he was crying. If my hometown was this creepy, I'd cry if I had to come back. Don't they have a priest? Wait, the little research I did said that Japan has monks and priests. Shinto priests, right?

Do priests even work? Wait, that's weird. Isn't that like asking does God exist-

I tripped. My face would have kissed the Japanese asphalt at high speed, if not for her help in stopping my fall with her hand.

"Ah, you're Yuri Plisetsky!" She said in Japanese. "Why are you running? A fan?"

I scrambled to my feet. "It won't leave me alone!"

My red-haired saviour patted me on the head. "Alright, follow my lead."

What? Was she an exorcist or something? Or... she saw the stalker?! I'm not crazy!

" _Ogromnoe spasibo..._!"

"I'm not sure what you just said, but alright." She put her hands on her hips. "I'm Nishigori Yuuko, the manager of our rink, Ice Castle Hasetsu. Oh, you have a scrape. Follow me, I'll get you treated."

"Mama- ah, it's Yuri Plisetsky!" Three dwarves were complaining inside... the inside of this place – an _ice_ _skating rink_ under a Japanese castle – was fairly empty. No doubt assisted by creepy footsteps stalking unsuspecting tourists.

Did Viktor _know_? He's a Ghibli maniac, but I don't think he ever knew how true that weird cartoon he pushes to everyone actually was. Otherwise, he would never shut up about it.

"We've been entertaining reporters every day since Viktor's presence was leaked here," she continued talking as I recovered my breath and my nerves after being stalked by invisible footsteps. "Right now there's not many people around."

"T- That thing chasing me... it's not real, right?" I asked her.

Yuuko looked at me, her eyes blank. "What are you talking about?"

"Ah, nothing." Backtrack, Yuri. There's nothing wrong. It's just the town getting to you.

You're imagining things. Now you're imagining that Japan-

Wait.

That's-

* * *

❅ **Yuuri**

"Finally... I'm here..." I panted, running straight into a wall inside Ice Castle Hasetsu. "Hey, Yuu-chan, my weight's finally back to what it was before the Grand Prix final!" I clambered to my feet. "Now I'll finally get Viktor's permission to skate- ow!"

The Russian Yankee was here! Why is he stepping on my forehead? Oh, I collapsed.

"It's all your fault. Apologise."

Why is he here?! And why is he mad at me?! He's super pissed-off. He lifted his foot off before I was about to lose it, though. I'd hate for Ice Castle to get a bad reputation because I flung him out to Tsushima by accident.

"He promised me first that he'd choreograph a program for me," the Russian punk drawled. "What about you?"

"Huh?" I gingerly got up, gasping. "We haven't gotten to talk about programs or anything..."

"HAH?" the punk yelled again, putting his foot down. "You make him take a whole year off, and to do what? Isn't getting him as a coach enough? As if a guy who'd sob in a toilet stall at the Grand Prix final can change at all just by getting Viktor as a coach!"

Oh, good. He didn't find out about the dent in the wall next to the toilet paper dispenser. That sneer wouldn't be there if he knew. He's totally underestimating me.

Dealing with these guys is... the technique is standard, but the execution would not be. "I don't really get the whole picture, so you should ask him yourself," I smiled back at him. Viktor came all the way to Hasetsu because he wanted to... to become my coach.

"Yuuri-kun, I have something to ask you," Yuu-chan pulled me aside, away from the Russian punk.

Yuu-chan was my rink-mate and two years my senior in school. Despite my family straddling the worlds of humans and _yōkai_ , she was one of the few human friends I had made. When we were little, she was really good at skating. She was my idol – the Madonna of Ice Castle Hasetsu. She was now married to Nishigori, with three kids. She's still cute!

I can't tell her, that the poodle we treasured, had been... I don't want to say it.

I can't tell Viktor.

But Yuu-chan might know something.

"Yuu-chan, what happened?"

"Betobetosan is wandering around again," Yuu-chan quietly told me, making sure that our guest from another land wasn't listening. The knowledge of _yōkai_ tends to be a turn-off for most foreigners – and a fetish for some Japanophiles, I'd learnt in Detroit. "Because there's so many new people in Hasetsu now, all the _yōkai_ are coming down to look at the party. They're having a blast scaring humans since Viktor came here. This is Monday night, right? Get them to tone it down, or we'll be called Japan's most haunted town if the paparazzi find out!"

"I'll tell him," I assured her. Generally speaking, any sizeable town in Japan had its own _yōkai, ayakashi,_ or _mononoke._ They were... well, it's an open secret, and you wouldn't believe how many people just flat out disbelieve in _yōkai_. Betobetosan is harmless, if creepy – and supposed to be in the mountains. City life does not agree with the invisible stalker _yōkai_ that fed on fear – the ambient noise of urban life doesn't help.

Surely Mum hasn't gotten any new _shōchū_.

"By the way, have you heard about any families having a sudden windfall or something?" I asked in passing.

"Well, we're all having a sudden windfall right now thanks to Viktor," Yuu-chan doubtfully replied. "Why?"

I can't tell her that someone might have taken Vicchan's head to make an _inugami_. _Inugami-mochi_ are feared for their ability to steal happiness from others. "N- Nothing. I'll get back to practice."

"Can I watch?!" Yuu-chan squeaked.

"Erm... I'll ask Viktor."

I didn't get to ask Viktor. He was on the ice, already skating through a program I've never seen in the silence.

"They're for the short program Viktor was practising for next season," the Russian Yuri told me.

If he was already putting together a program for next season... why had he come here? I listened to the Russian Yuri, but my attention was frankly on Viktor's step sequence leading up to his signature quad flip.

"If he's taking the next season off, I wonder if he'll let me use his program," Yuri's comment drew my attention off of Viktor.

"Eh?"

"I know I can surprise people more." Yuri whispered. "I need Viktor's help if I'm going to make my senior debut and win the Grand Prix final."

"Eh? Win?"

Yuri never answered me. He was too busy yelling at Viktor now.

* * *

❆ **Viktor**

"LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE DOING GREAT, VIKTOR!"

I had known it from the moment Yuri came here. Perhaps it was bad, but I doubt that a boy who could not connect emotions to his skating would learn by simply telling him over and over again. Was it a forgotten promise if I'm teaching him, just not how little Yura intended it? Even if Yura is trying to pull in a bet to do whatever the victor wants. So cute~

How this impromptu competition blew up to an official event in Ice Castle Hasetsu, though, I must credit the Nishigori triplets. I don't even feel too bad about crashing in, since the little town – and the rink – must be earning a fortune in ticket sales now. 'Hot Springs on Ice' will definitely be- _anshlag_? A full house, according to Google Translate.

Little Yura got a new nickname from Yuuri's sister. Yurio! It's so cute and Japanese!

"Good for you, Yurio," I commented as Yuuri moved to help his sister clear out the storeroom for little Yura.

"Shut up! That's not my name!"

I laughed at him. Japan is wonderful if you know enough Japanese to make a point, along with a translator app. Little Yura must have been frazzled.

The classic tiny room with its tiny shrine was so charming – though I personally thought that it looked like a pain to clean. Yuuri told me that it was a _kamidana_ , a god-shelf, and the rope with the paper streamers was a _shimenawa_ with _shide_. Yura followed my sight to that shelf, and shook his head. "Don't know why you came here, Viktor. It's creepy."

"Isn't it?" I agreed quietly, but not in the way Yura probably thought of. This was a bathhouse without the paper spirits, the river dragons, and No-Face – but it held its own form of magic anyway.

Yura ate well, and fell asleep with his arms as a pillow. I laid out on the tatami, watching as a while later, Mari came back to clean up alone.

"Where's Yuuri?"

"He left a while ago," Mari replied in English. The entire family seemed very proficient in English, which was a relief since the horror stories of not knowing fluent Japanese was fresh in my mind. "At times like this he'll be at Minako-san's place or Ice Castle. He's always been that way."

He went out? I pulled myself up, used to the aches and pains of long practice. "Could you please direct me?"

"Stick to the populated areas. If you really need to cross the bridge, don't do it alone."

"Why?" I couldn't resist asking. "Is No-Face going to be there?"

She snorted. "No-Face? Watched too much _Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi_?"

The film's Japanese name. "Ah, I'm a huge fan."

Mari smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Ah. So you don't know."

"Hmm?"

"It's not my place to say," Mari shrugged, but did not stop me from leaving to search for Yuuri. "Keep your eyes out. At night, anything can happen in Hasetsu."

I nodded, though I had no idea what she meant. I guess I'll know when I ask Yuuri!

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_


	6. 五: 吹雪

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **五** **:** **吹雪**

❆ **Viktor**

Kachu Snack Bar was quiet, as expected for a bar in a city as small as Hasetsu. It made sense for a former ballerina to retire here – the comforts of a quiet life after the glamour of the stage, but the semi-darkness that shrouded Hasetsu's light gave the tiny town some sort of charm, I suppose.

Minako Okukawa set down a bottle of Hell's Invitation. With a name like that, I'm surprised that it's not flying off the shelves. It's so imaginative~

There were even more bottles on display, so I might be interrupting a party that had yet to begin. Or maybe Hasetsu's lost youths were coming back for the Hot Springs on Ice event, and they decided to hit up this place. I recommend the _shōchū_!

"Huh? Yuuri? He's not here," she told me after I explained my purpose in visiting her business. "By 'my place', Mari meant my ballet studio. I teach ballet to kids... well, less since they're all leaving Hasetsu for now."

"Ballet?" Excellent foundation for conditioning, I noted. Yuuri certainly managed to show off some _ballon_ in that video.1

"Whenever Yuuri gets anxious, he always wants to practice," she explained quietly. "I usually go along with him. Ice Castle lets him skate anytime if it's not books already. Yuuri was able to grow because he had a place where he could practice alone whenever he got anxious."

"How is he?"

"He's not a genius, but he was gifted with more free time than anyone else to practice."

Even though he was surrounded by so many warm hearts, I suppose he might feel rather lonely. Mr and Mrs Katsuki were supportive, and that was very important. There was however a difference between _having_ the support and _using_ the support.

"Tonight's Monday," Minako warned me as I rose to leave. In the dim lighting of the bar, her dark eyes shimmered.

"Yes, Monday blues." I agreed. "You're not in a good mood, _madame_."

Minako nodded and smiled. That smile... unsettled me. "My relative is coming to visit tonight."

I went to Ice Castle again, only to be told that Yuuri had just left for the Atariûni Shrine in East Hasetsu. The Nishigori couple were still there, though. Nishigori-san drove the Zamboni to resurface the ice, and his wife Yuuko was sharpening the skate blades.

I think I'm having trouble over which honorific to use. I'll just call them Takeshi and Yuuko. Takeshi was a stocky-built man with tan skin, short-cut black hair, and a square jaw with a nose comparable to Ded Moroz. That would probably make Yuuko the _snegurka_ ; entirely appropriate.2

"Yuuri?" Nishigori-san echoed. "He's always came here to practice by himself, but he's not here. Guess he went to the Atariûni Shrine. It's right in town, but south by the river mouth."

"Oh, thank you..." I paused. "He must really love this place."

"I always thought that he really loved skating!" Yuuko chirped. "He didn't even play with his friends."

"Well, he was never very good at making them," Takeshi said. "Skating aside, he's not good at putting himself out there, and- anyway, I don't want this to be the end for him."

"Me too!" Yuuko agreed loudly. "He actually hates losing, doesn't he? It's just... them."

"What do you mean?" There is something... odd.

"The Katsuki family are... pretty... famous in the district. Lots of traditions come from the bit before Hasetsu was subsumed into the city.3 Long story." Takeshi hesitated. "People are... when someone else's onsen endures on despite every other onsen in town closing or drying out, it gets... you know how jealous some people get. But that's where it gets... weird."

I nodded. I could sympathise, except in my case, their jealousy was rather... futile. Perhaps If they cooked as well as Yuuri's mother, their inns would have stood the test of time. Things changed; some people just don't like to accept that.

"I..."

"I would like to know Yuuri better," I told them, without subterfuge or artifice. The _Bol'shoy sekret_ will be answered today!

"So apparently it happened in the sixties when Yuuri's grandfather carried a baby through a blizzard down a mountain and back to his house." Takeshi gesticulated as he spoke. "That's not exactly weird – rescuing a baby is a good thing, you'll agree? But that's where it gets-"

"Takeshi!" Yuuko's eyes narrowed in anger and... something else. Takeshi immediately kept silent, waiting as Yuuko gave me a measured look.

When she spoke, it was with uncertainty – and after she had looked over her shoulder. "They like Yuuri, you know," Yuuko whispered in the wake of my silence. "But they don't like outsiders who stay too long. That's why Yuuri's at the shrine. To pray. For nothing would happen."

"To him?" I asked. "Who are they?"

"Not to him, of course not." Yuuko glanced at me, meeting my eyes. "If you really wish to find out... it's Monday night. If you really want to know about Yuuri... the Atariûni Shrine in East Hasetsu. You'll know there."

* * *

❅ **Yuuri**

"That punk called me ugly! _Ugly_!" I sighed, thankfully unheard by the local god of sailing. "He looks like a catfish! I'll see how pretty he is when I turn _him_ into a catfish!"

"Please don't, Unihime-sama! There's too many humans looking at the Hot Springs on Ice, it'll be noticed," I hurriedly added.

See, my grandfather, in his infinite kindness, had taken in the child of a _yōkai_ , and in return gained the Ôbō-Jikara. His kindness did not stop there; the saloon of Yū-topia was opened to _yōkai_ clientele, and some _yōkai_ even managed to find work – as much as it was possible to fairly employ _yōkai_. Atarime-hiko and Unihime had been his clients, on the rare moments that they left the shrine in the local festivals. Grandpa had taught us shrine etiquette. After his death it fell to me, as the only relatively free person in the family, to communicate with the local gods.

Unihime had thrown a tantrum when I told her I was going to America. There had been... words. I kept wondering if she was going to commission a _fusuma_ to bring down the plane or something. In the end, I got a _katsumori_ waiting outside Yū-topia, and a standing offer once I retired. Which was defined as however long it took for me to move back to Hasetsu for good.

Mum probably played the human-lifespan card again. Although I think Atarime-hiko was involved in comforting her too...

Unlike _yōkai_ , though, the _kami_ and their attendants were an entirely different rank in the spirit world. A friend in Detroit had once lent me Gaiman's _The Sandman_ to read, so for people with Europe-centred conceptions of fairies, there is a world of difference between Tinkerbell and Maleficent.

If I had to draw a parallel, it was like the pair of gods presiding over Hasetsu were the _daimyō_ , and we were normal people who served them. Either way, Grandpa's legacy had connected our family to the local gods and demons, in a way that had most of Hasetsu either in awe or in fear – or, if they had moved away, irrelevant.

"I don't want to accept that... that... rude thing!" Unihime continued.

Of course, all spirits could be capricious to some degree. It was like they thought being part of the otherworld left them irrelevant to human laws. "No, I'm sure Yuri Plisetsky does not know the crime he has committed in transgressing against your representation before the train station. He comes from Russia."

"Ah," Atarime-hiko's voice echoed from within the shrine. "From beyond the shores of the sea. However, he is remiss in his manners."

"He's still young!" I tried. "He's... fifteen..."

"Then... he has not undergone the _genfuku_?4"

"No. Not at all."

A beat. "A child so far from his homeland... did he not follow his parents?" Atarime-hiko carefully asked. "What Kyō-sama called... the _sojourn children_?5"

"You mean... 'foreign student'?" I asked. "Yes... except that he's an athlete."

"But he is a minor within human society?" Atarime-hiko sounded so reasonable, except that I knew that in some ways, he was even more unreasonable than- "Since he is as minor, we can bring him here and _teach_ him. Humans will not find those hidden by gods.6"

I KNEW IT! "His guardian is... is Viktor. I think. So, I'll take responsibility for Yuri."

"You're an adult, Yuuri. Of course you'll take responsibility for yourself."

"No, I mean, the boy from Russia is also called Yuri. But it's a different Yuri!" I explained. "His name is Yuri Plisetsky!"

"Hmm... Russians have a middle name, right?"

"They won't usually give it out," Unihime responded to her husband. "So, Yuuri... what would you pay?"

"I..." I swallowed, trying not to finger the package at my side. "I can offer nothing of value. But, if given the chance, I will dedicate a performance to the great _kami_ of Hasetsu. I will perform... Lohengrin."

I shielded my eyes as the doors of the shrine's _honden_ opened with a clack of wood.

Despite being normally incorporeal, Unihime had chosen to appear in human form. I stared at her.

"Human hairstyles are truly varied," Unihime drawled. "Is there something wrong?"

"...not at all?" I hazarded. "It's just... is _ganguro_ catching on with the _kami_ or something?"

Since the _kami_ as a rule are able to change the details of their corporeal forms by whim, I'd never actually had a fixed idea of what the couple looked like.

Unihime, this time, was a moderately pretty woman who had her hair in a pageboy cut – shaped like a sea urchin, like everything else she wore.7 She wore a black full-length dress and wave-patterned tights ending in toe-socks, sauntering on _tengu-geta_ – the better to show off her reflexes She still looked way more flexible and acrobatic than Minako-sensei, sliding forward like she was walking on her toes even on those impossibly tall clogs – or maybe it was a deliberate choice.

"You'll do a _kagura_ dance?" She asked me pointedly.

"Huh...? I mean," I cleared my throat, "I will perform a routine as your personal entertainment at Ice Castle Hasetsu this night, in penance for Yuri's transgression against the gods."

"We can't go tonight," Atarime-hiko spoke, his voice drifting in from within the _honden_ instead of manifesting. "There's the flower-viewing party here."

"That's perfect!" Unihime whirled around on her impossibly-tall clogs, more like stilts. They stabbed into the ground, much like the spines of an urchin on an underwater roll. "That Hashihime rubs her _geiko_ into my face at every party in Uji. This time I'll have my revenge on a grand stage!"

I blinked at the local sea goddess, trying not to run and hide. Ôbō-Jikara or not, Unihime was still a _kami_ able to bless and curse in the same breath. "Eh?"

"Don't worry, boy," sparks fell from her fingers as she spoke. "Even god's entertainment needs to be varied a little."8

"I'm a figure skater!" I tried to ditch appearing in the middle of a holy procession to shame myself. My family still has some reputation in the spirit world, even if it was limited to up and down the archipelago. "I need ice!"

"Don't worry, it's the last frost, we can call in a _Yuki Onna_ or ask Kyō-dono to arrange something, I didn't hire an event organiser for nothing!"

...I'm not going to win here, am I?

* * *

❆ **Viktor**

I don't understand. What's so special about Monday night?

They gave me the same warning about Monday night when I announced my rather hasty departure to search for my student. Either way, I managed to find my own way to East Hasetsu as a sea mist blew in from over the Matsuura river. Just behind the bit where suburban Hasetsu was about to feed into a fork leading to two roads, I moved to take one road.

A bark echoed.

I froze. It was a normal bark, like Makkachin, but the thing that my eyes could barely see in the half-darkness of a flickering street-light. The looming dog stood in my path.

"Nice doggy..." I whispered. "Good doggy..."

The... thing... barked. I flinched. Then I realised as it growled and shook its head, towards a sign. "Oh..." I squinted. A chain wound around its neck – it was tethered to a pole topped with a mailbox. "The other road?"

A happy yip.

"Thank you." Maybe it should seem weird that I would chat with dogs like this, but my road was fairly straightforward. It's not like he understood Russian anyway. "I'm going to find my student Yuuri."

" _Gav_?"

"Yep, Yuuri. Do you know him? You must have known him with Vicchan. Well, I gotta go turn the little piggy into a prince, but I have to find him first, you know. _Dasvidaniya_!"

" _Gav gav._ "

Did he just...?

I kept walking the other path, which took me through a forest that really deserved its photo to be taken and uploaded, being so... creepy. Except that apparently, I couldn't get reception, so I simply took photos to upload later. I turned the flash on and started to take a photo, and then I squinted at the screen as a bright light went off and an image jumped out at me.

"Gyaa!"

My phone clattered to the ground. It was less than a meter tall – so about the size of a fair-sized child. It was small for a person. The strangest thing was the two horns seemed to split through its dishevelled red hair. Its sex was difficult to judge through its thin _kimono_.

"What is it?" it spoke. In _Russian_.

That is... incredible. The first time I've heard Russian in Japan, spoken with a Japanese accent, is so hot. Maybe if Yuuri spoke it...

"That is... incredible," it mouthed at me. "The first time I've heard Russian in Japan, spoken with a Japanese accent, is so hot. Maybe if Yuuri spoke it..."

"Er..."

"Is that your dog?"

A growl sent shivers up my spine as I whirled around to see the dog with its glinting chain. In the darkness, I could see no detail save for the chain reflecting light. I scrambled for my phone, except that it chose that moment to short out. Too much static...?

The dog growled, and gave a bark. I scrambled back, my heart beating in triple time _allegro_.

" _Okuri inu_ follow travellers back to their houses," the horned child taunted, its response far too impudent. "You can't outrun it, nor can you hide from it. The only way to shake it off is to fall down."

"Is that so?" I shifted my weight, and then fell.

"I lied," I heard right before the bark and teeth sank into my jacket.

A tree branch snapped. A weight hit me in the midriff, pushing my breath from my lips as I was hoisted up bodily. The horned liar of a child had been knocked down by a man wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat along with a formal kimono in dark blue, along with a jacket. That wasn't the weirdest thing; such an appellation should be reserved for the eight- no, _ten_ tentacles emerging from under the hat, complete with suckers under the edge. One of those tentacles was stretched along a tree branch, holding my body up from a controlled fall.

The horned liar straightened its back. It said nothing. It only gave a creepy laugh and an upturned glance.

"Okukawa. This human is under our shrine's protection."

I frowned. The newcomer was also speaking Russian, but... it was less of listening to Russian, and more about the intent of the language being fed directly into my mind.

"It was a joke," the liar smiled. "Welcome to the neighbourhood, as it were."

"I'll tell your daughter that you were hanging around here again. Or would you like to handle the Katsuki family again?"

The smile wiped off its face, and he jumped to his feet to make a dead run through the forest.

"Good place for a rest, Nikiforov-san." The newcomer spoke, turning towards the dog. "Too bad it has been stained with terrible intentions. The Katsuki family would never forgive me if I let their guest get savaged by a _yōkai_."

I frowned as the tentacle let me down, backing from it within three steps before I remembered the dog behind me. "Who are you? And what was... that person?"

"You may call me Atarime-hiko. As for the second question, that was not a person," replied the man. "That was an _Amanojaku_."

This time, only one word was phonetically pronounced. "Ama... no... jaku?"

"The _Amanojaku_ is an adversarial and unclean spirit that answers any question with a lie. It commits small pranks like reading travellers' minds to mimic them and surprise them. It would pull simple pranks, yet it was also a deadly creature that would kill people, wear their skin, and take their place."

I shuddered. "And... _okuri inu_?" I haltingly pronounced.

"The _okuri inu_ , also called _okuri ōkami_ ," all that information felt like it was not being told to me – more like it was being imparted into my head. "It follows lone travellers late on the road at night. It stalks them, keeping a safe distance but following as long as they keep walking. If the traveller should trip or stumble, the _okuri inu_ will pounce on them and rip them to shreds."

So the liar had malicious intent. "Thank you so much, Atarime-hiko...-san," I copied Yuuri's bow.

"It is somewhat of a blessing and a curse. They are so ferocious that while they are following someone, no other dangerous _yōkai_ or wild animals will come close. As long as one keeps his footing, he is safe. Most likely, he was guiding you to your destination."

"Ah... I'm looking for the Atariûni Shrine."

The man's tentacles became more prominent. "And what business do you have there?"

"I would like to understand my student better," I spoke. Japan had a way of pulling away my attempts at obscuring the truth – likely because so much of it had been obscured that I hadn't even known the dog was a _prividénije_. "I talk to Yuuri mostly in English, so... I can't understand Yuuri. Yuuko said that if I come here tonight, I'll know the answer about who Yuuri is. You just mentioned the Katsuki family with that thing... they're Yuuri's family, right?!"

The man regarded me with his shiny eyes under his hat. The tentacles kept waving in the air, undecided. "How is that important?" He said at last, or he... his mouth definitely _wasn't_ moving when I heard him. "You could do very well not knowing this."

"I cannot do that. I am his coach, and I need him to trust me. As his coach... there is so much I need to learn that he won't let me." I told the man.

"You came here to chase a dream, Nikiforov-san."

"That's... part of the reason," I looked away. "Not a dream, more... a possibility. Of winning something else. Takeshi mentioned Yuuri's grandfather, but I don't understand the connection."

"You came here with the snowstorm and did not know?"

"No... why?"

"No... it was simply an inevitable coincidence." The man turned his back to me. "We're having a flower-viewing party. The weather is great. Would you like to come along?"

"I should be getting back now." No wonder they gave me so many warnings about Monday night. If _monstrs_ were running around every Monday night no wonder there were so many warnings in Hasetsu.

But he knew my name. And the Katsuki family. And nobody would tell me anything.

"You came here to learn about Yuuri, didn't you?" Atarime-hiko asked me, echoing my thoughts. "How do you know that you were not meant to be here? Who could you ask, who could speak your language, and willingly give, without artifice, a direct answer to your mysterious protégé?"

"You're... a _prízrak_?" I could not answer that question.

For one, that would imply that the horned liar was more than a mutation, and this dog more than a simple canine. It would mean that the Bolsheviks were wrong, that all those monsters and by extension God did exist-

"I'm not a ghost, boy," he laughed. "I'm the local land god, and your ward has just angered my wife."

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 **1 Ballon is the appearance of being lightweight and light-footed while jumping. It is a desirable aesthetic in ballet and other dance genres, making it seem as though a dancer effortlessly becomes airborne, floats in the air, and lands softly.**

 **2 Ded Moroz is a Slavic fictional character similar to that of Father Christmas. The literal translation is "Old man Frost", often translated as "Grandfather Frost". Ded Moroz is accompanied by Snegurochka, his granddaughter and helper, who wears long silver-blue robes and a furry cap or a snowflake-like crown. She is a unique attribute of Ded Moroz, since similar characters in other cultures don't have a female companion.**

 **3 Hasetsu is based off of the city of Karatsu in Saga, Kyushu. The current Karatsu was composed in 1889 by the establishment of the modern municipal system of Japan. Hence, the current city region is occupied by 1 town, and 19 villages. However, bureaucratic change doesn't always lead to a disruption of continuity – yōkai also form part of the traditions of the villages they live in. This is what partially makes this story plausible – that Yuuri is alone not only because of his own lack of social skills, but also the fact that everyone knows that his family is associated with the yōkai world.**

 **4 Genpuku is a Japanese coming-of-age ceremony modelled after an early Tang Dynasty Chinese custom, dates back to Japan's classical Nara Period. This ceremony marked the transition from child to adult status and the assumption of adult responsibilities. The etymology of the word, which is atypical, reflects the major points of genpuku ceremonial format; in this case gen (元)means "head" and fuku (服) means "wearing".**

 **5 Kaigaishijo is a word referring to the children of Japanese expatriates who take part of their education outside Japan.**

 **6 Kamikakushi (lit. 'hidden by kami') means "spirited away". Kamikakushi is used to refer to the mysterious disappearance or death of a person that happens when an angered god takes a person away.**

 **7 Unihime means 'sea urchin princess'. In this case, hime is '毘売' instead of '姫', because it's an indicator of divinity rather than royalty.**

 **8 Kagura is a Japanese word referring to a specific type of Shinto theatrical dance. Once strictly a ceremonial art , Kagura has evolved in many directions over the span of more than a millennium. Today it is very much a living tradition, with rituals tied to the rhythms of the agricultural calendar, as well as vibrant Kabuki theatre.**


	7. 六: 寒波

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **六** **:** **寒波**

❆ **Viktor**

The stairs kept going... and going... and going... and this would be an excellent exercise for Yurio. Why wasn't he here? How tall was this mountain?

It felt like a geological epoch before we finally reached the top of the moss-covered stone stairs. Trees on either side were garlanded with folded paper and twisted ropes. Hundreds upon hundreds of the tiny roadside shrines and grinning bald statues stared out in between the sacred trees – I'd seen monk-trees in Southeast Asia, but a tree wearing a saffron cassock just seemed a bit dumb to me.

Here, I would not be surprised if a _leshy_ had set up shop.

All at once a strong breeze came tearing up the hillside. Scattering leaves, and sending the trees creaking and moaning. Something moved – nothing when I looked back. Not even the dog. No one to be seen.

The wind blasted again, carrying the petrichor of rain even without a single cloud in the night sky. It stole my breath, and I gave it willingly as the ocean opened up beyond the summit.

By my observation, Atariûni Shrine should be surrounded by houses interspaced with forest. Here, though, it looked unspoiled – either that, or I had been led into another world at the top of the hill. But that could not be right – to my left was the silhouette of that Japanese castle rising from the plain it stood upon. To my left was the bridge stretching in the distance, the tiny houses – and Yū-topia – dotted in specks of light, swaying like a wave on the sea. Endlessly inky black mirrored the sky, currents drawing pale lines shrouded in moonlight across the surface. It was so hard to breathe, with a heavy weight on my lungs, but I would have given anything, everything-

I was pulled.

"You went the wrong direction," Atarime-hiko scolded me as I landed on my feet. "You're lucky the dog managed to catch your foot before you drowned."

I spat out some water. It smelt like seaweed. Around me was the wet, loamy smell of more forest. "What... was that?"

"That was an idiot leaving open the doorway to the Dragon King's Palace, which nearly put you into the Sea of Japan," Atarime-hiko commented, waving a hand towards a tree. A pair of ropes joining two trees snapped, the ropes fraying before leaves poked out from between its twists.

"But I saw a city," I floundered. "Like Hasetsu, and a castle... was that all false?"

"That was probably a _shinkirō_ ," he shrugged. "They're magic giant clams that breathe out fantastical illusions over the open ocean. It's for that reason that the word for mirage is written as 'clam breath tower'. They function as the gates to the palaces of the dragon kings."

I got back up. A trickle of salt water dripped from my hair onto my face; I was sopping wet, probably from walking into the Sea of Japan.

"Come, human," Atarime-hiko led me through the familiar sloping gate I associated with Shinto shrines. "Welcome to Atariûni Shrine."

I probably could into describe it very well. The shrine was a building set far back into whatever space there was, surrounded by smaller... buildings. On my right was a well covered with a roof, beside that was another building. The left was occupied by far more buildings. The road under my feet was smooth slate; not as magical as whatever lay beyond the ruined doorway I had nearly drowned in, but definitely far safer.

Its veranda was opened to the front of the shrine, which had been turned into a tiny theatre of sorts. The area before the large building itself was a stage, ringed in more of the twisted ropes called _shimenawa_ and festooned with coloured folded paper strips – the _shide_. An assortments of picnic carpets surrounded it. Paper lanterns aped grinning faces – they looked cute, until I overheard one threaten to set another on fire in a heated argument in jabbered Japanese.

In that movie with the bathhouse and the dragon and No-Face, the shadowy beings that came alive in the street leading up to the bathhouse seemed to me extremely cute and funny. Looking at them up close was... well, intimidating. Four old crones cackled and babbled at the far west. A giant loomed, drops of alcohol dripping from the saucer-shaped cup Yuuri had explained was a cup exclusively for _sake_. A family of foxes and dogs turned into humans, cats, kettles... and it was so cold, as cold as the inside of a skating rink or comparable to the winters of Moscow – not very cold, but sometimes colder.

"Meow!" A yowl caused me to jump and back away from the gold-furred cat. Which could talk. Which could talk, and had a forked tail. "What're _you_ looking at?"

I took a deep breath. "No, no way-"

The cat's nostrils flared. "Hey, you're-!"

" _There_ you are," my host looked impatient as he forded across the crowd. I could sympathise with him – if I hadn't ended up at what looked like a party of monsters. A porcelain mask was shoved into my hands. It was completely blank – and by blank, I meant it was as smooth as an eggshell. "Wear this."

To the cat, he said: "I know you're hiding from Kyō-sama, so I will not mention this to her if you mention nothing of him to anyone, Akihito."

I tried to ask him. "How would I-"

"Remember when you nearly drowned?" Atarime-hiko sweetly reminded me. " _Put on the mask_."

I did so, and found to my surprise that it did not impair my vision a bit.

"The masks of the spirit world is half-illusion and half-actual material," Atarime-hiko reminded me as he led me towards the main building. "Let's find a change of clothes. And a bath," he added as I gave a sneeze. "Luckily this is a volcanic region, Hiroko would forgive me if I used some of her..."

By bath, he meant a hot spring bath out in the open backyard of the shrine buildings. It was far more of a relief to wash off the drying saltwater and dive in.

The back door that led into the shrine opened, and a creature that looked like a cross between lion and dog pushed out a bamboo washbasin – entirely with the Japanese aesthetic, it seems.

"Hey," I spoke. "That's the Yū-topia... soap, right?"

The... thing gave a huff.

"Ah..."

"Is there something wrong?" Atarime-hiko was back. "My apologies, however my retainers are not acquainted with your tongues. Any of them. And we are understaffed as it is, being a small shrine of little comparative worth."

His mouth wasn't moving. "Ah, thank you," I bowed shortly, unsure of the etiquette of the ultra-polite. "It's... this is the Yū-topia soap."

"Hiroko leaves some bars as offerings each year."

"Oh..." Now I felt uncertain. "Thank you."

Washing up was simple enough, after I found a tap to rinse off with the washbasin. I poured the waste water down a drain by the side, which was probably for this ostensible purpose. Any shame I felt when cleaning up vanished when I found another _kimono_ waiting next to the door leading out of the shrine building, and the lion-dog creature waiting.

The creature pulled the hem of my kimono towards a classic Japanese room. My clothes has been stretched out on wooden racks standing within the room, with fireballs surrounding them.

"Eh, good enough." Atarime-hiko dominated the room from the raised dais upon which he sat on my left – stage right, that is. The left of the dais currently stood empty. His right hand made a motion. "You have come to find the answer as to our town's Yuuri."

"Yes," I nodded. "And... Yura. Yuri Plisetsky. How has Yuri offended your wife?"

"He called her creepy."

I wanted to cringe. I would have cringed, but it was in front of a guest. "He's still young. Tomorrow I will bring him here to apologise."

"No, your... guardians in this town have settled it," Atarime-hiko dismissed with the great dignity that not even Lilia had ever managed. In fact, I think the former _prima_ would have been jealous of his carriage. "However, that is where I am... uncertain. You see, he has chosen to beg for the god's forgiveness using a new form of kagura dance, meant to entertain the gods. It coincided with tonight's flower-viewing party. However, I find myself in need of your help, Nikiforov-san."

One of the flaming lights floated over, to hover around the man with the tentacles under his hat. In its spectral light, the man no longer resembled a human, more like a predatory squid aiming to eat humans.

"What do you know about Lohengrin?"

* * *

❅ **Yuuri**

"It's part of my dark past..." I complained.

"It can't be helped. Unihime's type is the knight-and-lady romances," the event organiser consulted a truly fearsome stack of handwritten notes in a leather binder.

Tonight, Kyō Kaigara wore a young-looking face with her dark blue _kimono_ tied at the front with a _Kai-no-Kuchi_ knot _._ I'd heard Mari-neechan say that you could tell the season just based on Kyō-sama's clothes, and it showed – silver butterflies stuck on hair-sticks threaded through her bun, falling cherry blossoms depicted against a gunmetal-grey silk background. Jade rings around her fingers made a clacking sound when they knocked against her binder.

All of that was fake, since I'd seen her change forms into Mum, Mari-neechan and Minako-sensei in quick succession. Each time she came to Hasetsu, though, her face was that of a homely, pretty, middle-aged woman. She did not seem like a supernatural being from China; older than all of us put together.

"Tonight's theme is culture-mixing," she continued. "Because Hasetsu and Karatsu were historical ports between China and Korea, I thought it'd be an East Asian theme right up to Unihime dropping this."

"I'm very sorry for the trouble," I apologised.

"Never mind it, it's an interesting challenge. And a large bill." She dismissed it. "Perform _Lohengrin_. Do it very well. I'll then get Osakabe-hime and Hashihime on my client list. "

Hiring ordinary event planners was one thing, but pulling in the _yōkai_ equivalent of a fairy godmother was probably pushing the envelope. "I'm sorry that Unihime-sama is forcing this onto you-"

Kyō Kaigara stopped consulting her notes to regard me, her eyes shining with the power she had used to craft the rink. Out of ice. Because it wasn't enough that my sister have the same strength as me, she had to have access to a literal fairy godmother, albeit one that was more distant than most. "Were you picturing yourself as the Grail knight, Katsuki-kun?"

I nodded, blushing. "Because... of my strength."

She nodded. "Done _kagura_ before?"

"A... few times." I fidgeted. "In high school. Mainly when nobody was available. This is my old routine, so... my old costume-"

"You cannot perform in _that_ ," Kyō-sama might have physically recoiled. "The pride of our textiles are at stake here!"

"There's no other choice," I pointed out. "There's no way to put together a working costume-"

I waited until she had stopped laughing to ask.

"Oh, child," the elder demon just looked at me. "Who do you think I am?"

A clack of the jade rings put me in-

"Is this a real feather mantle?" I asked, scandalised as I poked the outfit she had stuck me in. Rather than a form-fitting bodysuit, she chose to put me in black-and-white samurai armour. A large cloak of white feathers feeding out to black tips marked the mantle in question.

I shifted. Despite the whole attire, it was as easy as skating in workout clothes. That made me green with envy about the expense of commissioning an outfit for each and every event.

"To recap for you: this is a flower-viewing party for spring," Kyō-sama honestly told me. "The story of Lohengrin involves a swan knight, but you have to consider your audience."

That's... culture doesn't usually play a part in choice of routines, but a lot of skaters chose to use Western classical music for a reason. Kyō-sama's choice, while it doesn't make sense to people who know Lohengrin, might make sense if introducing the concept to _yōkai_ , who were fairly alien to human cultures as far as it went. That was actually pretty good... " _Yōkai_ don't know Lohengrin, but they surely know the Crane Returning the Favour. That's... that's genius. I won't do much changes to the routine or my choice. It's just... the music is the prelude to Act One, right?"

"It is." She handed me the slate of performers so far. "You're up first. My newest understudy is performing the Beauty Song after you, and then it's more or less a free-for-all."

"If you move her to the first slot, I go second, and then rearrange this bit and this bit, I think we can piece together the Lohengrin story." I pointed to the relevant bits.

"Even the bit where Gottfried is turned back, Lohengrin leaves, and Elsa dies?"

"Even that bit."

"Even the Bridal Chorus?"

"... then you'll have to improvise an ice dance in the..." Her fingers flew in a rough calculation. "...two hours that come between these two. Ôbō-Jikara or not, we haven't worked out the blocking issues."

"Turn it into several performances within a play," I argued. "Look, you can be the narrator... move up the _Aoi no Ue_ and this bit from _Atsumori_..."1

Kaigara-san looked doubtful, but she accepted my explanations up until she said: "I'm glad we're a _kabuki-mono_ troupe. Less pressure to stick to traditions like that."

* * *

❆ **Viktor**

"This is possibly the weirdest rendition of Lohengrin I had ever seen," I commented to my hosts. The mask apparently masked my... human-ness, so my host assured. The beautiful lady I was introduced as Atarime-hiko's wife, Unihime, kept giving me stern looks like she would like nothing better than to crush my skull under her alarmingly tall clogs, even as she gave a speech from the veranda to announce the start of festivities.

There was a whole crowd of... _yōkai..._ assembled before them, in what looked like a midnight picnic around the stage. A flower-viewing party for _yōkai_ consisted of _sake_ , snacks, and raucous partying interspaced with dignified performance.

The funniest thing was its opening – a large boulder was tossed in, and then a beautiful lady perched atop it. Her hand shifted, and her voice echoed about the meadow and shrine buildings at such an impressive volume, I was surprised that humans hadn't noticed them.

"Welcome, one and all," Atarime-hiko translated for me when I asked. "You may know us as Kyō Kaigara, the mistress of ceremonies this night. Tonight, we will be performing a succession of plays according to the story of Lohengrin."

Then she left, another beautiful lady took her place, and sang and danced... in _Chinese_.

"Such was Elsa of Brabant celebrated."

That was the least weird thing that happened in the whole performance.

Two literal demons – one male and one female, probably – then clambered onto the stage, taking the motif of Telramund as it played in the air. My hosts was addressed, and in this tradition of leaning on the fourth wall, Atarime-hiko called for a trial by combat. The horned demon cackled, a deep baritone that completely fulfilled the concept of Telramund.

That was the cue for Lohengrin's entry. Even his figure was dwarfed by the demons, yet his cut a dashing black-and-white figure on the ice. As he came gliding over the stage, it was then that I realised that the Japonised figure of Lohengrin was standing on skates.

Which meant... that the entire stage is an open-air rink.

Murmurs came up amidst the audience, about the atypical cloak of black and white feathers of the swan knight, set off with a helmet as red as fresh blood. "Ah, they chose to adapt him as a crane."

My neck must have suffered whiplash as I turned to see Unihime desperately looking through what must be the stage directions. "The Crane Wife."

"What's that?"

"A man marries a woman who is in fact a crane disguised as a human," Atarime-hiko narrated. "To make money, the crane-woman plucks her own feathers to weave silk brocade which the man sells, but she becomes increasingly ill as she does so. When the man discovers his wife's true identity and the nature of her illness, she leaves him, by the rules of the _yōkai_ world. I suppose it does parallel the fact that, even if _yōkai_ wishes to live with humans, their fates do not remain forever intertwined-"

" _Bozhe moi!_ " I ejaculated as the trial by combat, with Lohengrin championing Elsa in the form of Telramund picking up the boulder and flinging it at Lohengrin. "Is that allowed?!"

"It's trial by combat."

Lohengrin drifted out of the way, easily skating across the ice – and he was skating, I could tell. A quad toe loop followed, to great gasps and a smattering of applause, but Lohengrin's glide belied the strength by which _he_ picked up the boulder and smashed it into the demon. A rain of broken stone crashed across the ice before Telramund and Lohengrin exchanged arm blows, which resounded with titanic echoes across the cold spring night.

The narrator threw a white powder onto the stage. More cries and words in Japanese echoed, cracking like whips.

"Sumo?" I asked as Telramund was body-checked out of the ice after a few more spins, flips and jumps. Maybe if I were more focused I would have seen the routine as it were, but monsters apparently had their entertainment via combat.

"Seems like it, since they're giving him the _shimenawa_. Only the _yorozuna_ – the highest rank of wrestler – normally gets to wear that," Atarime-hiko pointed it out to me. Unihime, as one of the 'kings' in this scenario, declared the outlawing of Telramund as a mass of dancers poured onto the ice – all manner of unrecognisable ghouls and demons, four of which stood out for Telramund to approach them, lumbering to make great spiderweb-cracks in the ice.

The Japonised pastiche of Lohengrin continued as Ortrud – the female demon – then engaged in something like casting spells towards Elsa. The flashing lights were a sight to watch.

"Ah, the _kijo_ – Ortrud, I mean – is casting a spirit to delude Elsa," Atarime-hiko explained to me. A bottle of sake and its accompanying tableware was placed next to me. "Thank you, Mari."

"Mari?!" I tore my eyes away from the stage with great difficulty. Mari Katsuki blanched as she saw me.

"Why are you here?"

"He invited me. Why are _you_ here?!" I shouted back at her in surprise.

She turned paler, turning to Atarime-hiko. "Does Kyō-sama know you're trying to do another Ono no Takamura?!"2

My host smiled back to her. "I am answering a prayer."

"You can't do this to Yuuri."

"It is inevitable," Atarime-hiko turned back to the performance of the wedding chorus – which had already devolved into chaos and combat, since it was directly at the bit where Elsa asks the fatal questions at the cusp of Telramund and his cronies attacking the swan- I mean, crane knight. His arms were like the wings of a swan slapping out – and those birds had enough strength to break a man's arm, as well as pluck eyes out. The demon Telramund, having been knocked off-balance, fell down with a convincing scream, at which Lohengrin stooped, lifted him by his back, and chucked him into the audience to screams and stamping.

From the ice grew a tree, convincingly waving leaves of frost and its icy trunk lined with white powder. Flakes of snow condensed and fell, with Lohengrin's mask in the middle of his farewell dance. Not a single word of the opera had been sung by him – but the sorrow of parting was imparted in Elsa's scream, in Lohengrin's farewell bow, fluttering and gliding away into the mists towards the veranda.

"No!" I heard Elsa – no, Mari – shout. "Yuuri, don't look here!"

Before I saw his video, I had thought that I would be a good coach when pigs fly.

He is flying now. My Lohengrin had been with me all along.

...Yuuri.

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 **1 Aoi no Ue is a Noh play about a mistress cursing a wife with spirit possession. Atsumori is a Kabuki play about a young samurai's death – and the death is the most famous thing about him.**

 **2 Ono no Takamura was a noble, scholar, poet, and government official who lived in the first half of the 9th century. He is famous for being clever, quick-witted, and somewhat insolent. He is even more famous for his side job in hell as an attendant to Great King Enma, discovered because he saved a fellow official when the other official descended to King Enma's court for judgement.**


	8. 七: 北風

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **七** **:** **北風**

❅ **Yuuri**

Maybe Sharegaki had managed to throw that boulder accurately. It would certainly explain why I was seeing Viktor here, of all places – I got hit in the head, maybe. Well, it would not be the first time that Sharegaki had forgotten to _pretend_. The usual stereotype of mountain _oni_ being... dim... could only be perpetuated by people who had met Sharegaki. If not for his sister Usugaki, I half-wondered how he'd managed to survive. Maybe all his prodigious strength must have come about at the cost of brains.

Viktor, _here_? In the middle of Unihime's flower-viewing party? Before a throng of the monsters of the mountains and seas?

Watching me thoroughly butcher Lohengrin?

"Thank you, thank you," Kyō-sama spoke up, loud enough to snap me out of my trance. "That was the artistic offering made by the human Katsuki family of Hasetsu."

More murmurs rose, and I tried not to fidget. Half of dealing with _yōkai_ was being firm about boundaries. _Yōkai_ were creatures that existed at the liminality of the world; hence, any sort of boundary was usually meant to keep them out (except for Nurarihyon and the great _yōkai_ , but that was a different story, since the master of all spirits lived in the demon capital, not in southern Japan). After some trouble that was related to Minako-sensei's family – I'm not up on the details – Grandpa had made an arrangement with the _yōkai_. It had concentrated them all in one area of space and time; every Monday night, for the day named after the moon, _yōkai_ activity was permitted in this half of town after dark, but no guest of Yū-topia could be harmed. In exchange, we provided the drinks.

The _yōkai_ accepted it. They didn't really like it, but fighting it would pit them directly against the Ôbō-Jikara.

I went down on one knee – no full obeisance from me unless absolutely necessary, thanks, but this ought to be sufficient.

Unihime laughed. "We would award you for such a magnificent performance," she announced, smug and grinning towards two other flower-viewing tents – the ladies she was trying to one-up, probably. "You may request a boon, within reason."

According to Mum's procedure – and Grandma's lecture – I bowed my head in acknowledgement of the compliment, then stood. "We are glad that you enjoyed our paltry attempt. It is an opera from Germany."

The murmurs rose, and Unihime's grin grew larger. "You have acquaintance with them, then. The _Nanban_ people."

A collective shudder went up. " _Kirishitan_ ,1" one of the _oni_ muttered. "Shōkera never recovered from Shimabara."

"I have lived in Detroit for five years, and travelled in between tournaments," I replied with more confidence. Figure skating is not the sort of thing you brought to the local monsters. "I have returned only by coincidence with your august party, Unihime-sama."

More whispers. "What if he converted?"

"Make him go through _e-fumi_?"

A new generation of _yōkai_ were probably growing from the auspices of the Internet. Hopefully, they would be more up-to-date than this lot.

"In fact, there are two people from another land. I have given plea for protection on one, and now I plead for the other. His name is Yuri Plisetsky."

"...We know of him. He is ill-mannered, disbelieving, and rude."

Usugaki, the _kijo_ who played Elsa of Brabant, gave a gasp. "Young meat, Nii-san! Perhaps his flesh would confer properties like the flesh of Genjō Sanzō?2"

"As far as I know, he is a young human," I continued before some enterprising _yōkai_ could go to Yū-topia and try to re-enact _Kurage Honenashi_ on Yurio.3 "He is innocent and unknowing."

"I see. If you are pleading so hard for his sake, then I will forgive that stranger from another land. He must however purify himself in repentance for his folly within the moon's fall."

It took a while to reinterpret that. "You want him to sit in a waterfall and get hit by Zen sticks?"

"A little enlightenment never goes amiss." Unihime was laughing, of course. "Raise your head, boy. Your foreign friend has come to see you."

...oh.

That was Viktor.

I turned around and ran off of the stage, nearly chopping in half a _shiro ukari_ with my skates. The blades dug into the ground, but I reached down and wrenched them off, uncaring that it was broken.

It was magic – when the clock struck twelve they would probably vanish. I didn't care. I was more occupied with the fact that _Viktor knows_.

Viktor knows, I thought as I ran into the cover of the forest. Viktor knows I... that I live with monsters.

Viktor knew... knew that I was a monster.

* * *

❆ **Viktor**

"Oh god, Yuuri." I got up to chase as my newest protégé flung himself off the stage and took to the dark copse of trees. "Wait, Yuuri!"

"Why'd you let him come here?!" I heard Mari talking to Atarime-hiko. "Why was Yuuri performing?! You let them throw a rock at him! He's an athlete, he can't afford to get injured!"

"A boulder could not harm him," Atarime-hiko dismissed. "Two boulders could not harm him. Maybe were it the Mountain of Five Fingers,4 but that is no longer present."

"I don't- I need to find Yuuri!" I ducked away, grabbing my soaking wet sneakers as I ran out from the step of the veranda. They resounded with squishy sounds as I stuffed my feet in them, but it was probably better than trying to navigate the surrounding forestry in pigeon-toed sandals. Why would-

No, I chided myself. Of course he couldn't say it.

Putting aside the fact that _everybody_ knew that monsters aren't real, there was also the...other problem. The Church – actually, make that any monotheistic religion – has some... _problems_ with Shinto. Apparently, the concept that gods and spirits live together with humans on the same plane of existence is confusing. It was the kind of problems that made religious wars look minor. Sure, Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless and the _leshy_ and the _bannika_ are part of Russian culture, but it's not the monsters to be actively feared in the cities. The fear comes from violent crime and the Mafiya and bad policy.

They might exist.

But that was in Russia, and here and now, my student was afraid and somewhere in this forest. My Lohengrin was floating away.

"Yuuri! Yuuri, where are you?!"

Moonlight barely lit my way as I scrambled through the Japanese bush, the cold air from a passing north wind stirring up another possible freak snowstorm.

God, I hope not. Japan's winters might not match up to Russian winters, but being outside in such thin clothes was just asking for a cold. At least the way was clear with a dirt path surrounded by trees and the full moon to guide the way. It would seem romantic. Or terrifying.

"Yuuri, it's alright."

He understood English, I knew. Yuuri was a skater competing on an international level, and he had been in Detroit. His last coach was Celestino Cialdini – and had he known?!

Probably not – if this kind of _party_ was happening all the time in Detroit, Yuuri could not have passed the qualifying domestic tournaments to reach the Grand Prix final.

Note to self: contact Celestino and investigate... whatever Yuuri seems to think he should hide from me. No, that wasn't right-

"Ow!" I walked into a tree with thankfully smooth bark. Bits and leaves stuck on my skin as I recalled the play just now.

What was more surprising, I wonder – the party of monsters, or the fact that Yuuri could dead-lift two hundred kilograms of monster by my estimate?

Wood cracked, leaves rustled. The giant monster with the ruddy face – the exact same one playing Telramund just now – stomped towards me as I whirled towards the direction of the sound. The spiked iron club it carried in one hand was as tall as me. As it sauntered forward, I could make out its height – three to four metres, with ruddy skin and wearing... well, horns, more hair than should be possible, and a loincloth of fur.

"Yuuri..." it groaned.

I backed up. "You're looking for Yuuri too?"

It spoke something. In Japanese.

"I'm sorry, I don't speak Japanese," I haltingly pulled out my tourist-Japanese.

It jabbed a finger as thick as my waist at my direction. "You. Yuuri?"

"Coach." I pointed to myself. "Viktor."

"Viktor." The great... thing's head tilted. "Viktor. Yuuri. Sad."

"Yes."

"You-"

The great monster froze as a smaller humanoid shape with horns alighted on its shoulder. A melodic voice twittered in Japanese, to which the great monster grunted and replied some more.

I would have gotten my phone for Google Translate, but it had broken. If the two of them don't know English, this might be harder than I thought. In my defence, I had not packed with the intention to talk to monsters without the benefit of locals to help me translate. Why would I expect to, for the love of God?

"You are... the guest." The girl finally spoke in accented English. "At _Yū-topia Onsen_."

That was far more welcoming than it ought to be. "Viktor, please."

"I am Usugaki. This is my older brother, Sharegaki." the horned girl motioned to the monster upon whose shoulder she stood. "He says that you are Yuuri's... idol. Yuuri puts on the metal blades and skates to emulate you."

...well. "Thank you," I told her. It was a relief that Yuuri didn't hate me, and was the opposite.

"He likes you." The girl repeated. "But you made him cry."

"Not deliberately, I assure you," I told her. "I'm looking for Yuuri."

The monster- well, her brother, started to mumble some more.

"My brother says that if we get rid of you, Yuuri will not cry," the girl echoed.

...Oh. "I'm sure we can talk this out! I'm his coach!"

"We know." The girl sounded impatient. "Yuuri begged for your protection from the gods. Or else, you would have been the target of much mischief upon staying too long in Hasetsu. It is the courtesy agreed upon between them and us."

Yuuri had...? That was oddly attractive, the thought of Yuuri praying for my sake. I must really consider a high-level program for his sake!

"What's with that face?"

"Ah, it's nothing." I wiped my drool on my sleeve with a mental apology to my host, not having a tissue on hand. "Have you known Yuuri for long?"

Not a single insect must have moved as she considered my question. "We have known the Katsuki family since Hiroko's birth."

"His mother's- but you don't look like it."

"I came into being during the Muromachi period. My brother came to be during the end of the Kamakura shogunate."

I had no idea what that meant, but that presumably meant that they were very old creatures. One was ugly, but the other was a truly enchanting creature, with her soft singing voice and- ah, I digress. "So... you've known him forever. That's... great. Are you... his girlfriend?"

"Yuuri!" Mari's voice echoed long before the person herself came into view, swinging a grinning paper lantern along. "Viktor- oh, there you are. Sharegaki, Usugaki."

"Mari-san." The girl spoke, complete with rapid-fire Japanese.

Mari responded some more, and then changed to English: "So you came to see Yuuri's coach?"

"He made Yuuri sad, so Nii-san was going to smash him. I stopped him."

I swallowed. That club looked like I would turn into a bundle of matchsticks really fast.

"We will return to the party. Good evening, Mari-san." Usugaki tugged on an ear, and the... her _brother_ slowly shuffled off, leaving me alone with Yuuri's sister.

The brown-haired woman sighed, a cigarette butt hanging from one corner of her mouth before she removed it to speak. "In that pair, it's not Sharegaki to watch out for. Usugaki was trying to hypnotise you with her _miryoku_."5

"WHAT?!"

"It failed, but it looked like it might have taken before I came," Mari explained, turning on one foot. "What were you doing there, Viktor?"

"I got lost! And this dog pulled me to the shrine I was looking for. Yuuko said that I could find the answers here." I related the sequence of events to Mari's perpetually deadpan expression. "Then I saw Yuuri lift what must be five times his weight! That's incredible!"

"Four. Sharegaki weighs about two hundred kilos." A ring of smoke gave Mari an otherworldly look. "So... we got discovered."

Eh? What did she mean?

Her meaning was made extremely clear, as Mari's arm whipped out, her elbow easily smashing into the tree next to her. The wood splintered and fibred before it creaked, and the whole thing dropped in a massive _thump_ , muffled by the forest scrub. It gave one bounce before the piles of leaves and petals in smaller trees sagged, their crowns crushed by the fall of one behemoth.

The leaves getting caught in my borrowed _kimono_ seemed rather secondary right now, as I backed away and stared at her in the light of her eerie lantern and its... Her shadow had grown four arms.

That's not normal, right? "Why... your shadow..."

"You don't know. 'Course you don't." Mari wiggled her fingers, checking her elbow which she had just used to fell a tree. "Not even most Japanese would figure it out."

"F- Family secret?"

Sweet, smiling Hiroko and her cooking. Kind, doddery Toshiya who fed Makkachin. Dour, dutiful Mari. Yuuri... the figure skater with the world's biggest glass heart.

"Have you heard about the _yōkai_ called the Ubume?"

I shook my head.

"I thought so," Mari nodded.

The implications of what she had just done sent jolts of panic through my heart. "Yuuri... Yuuri!" I scrambled. "Yuuri's missing!"

"He'll be fine." Mari continued to puff her cigarette. "It can't be helped."

I did not manage to answer, for then Lohengrin bore down on us, heroic in his bearing and the light of the moon dusting the ebony and snow of his feather cloak.

"Mari-neechan?! What happened- _Viktor_?!"

"We got found out, is what happened," Mari told Yuuri, for it was Yuuri who was channelling Lohengrin now. "This is mainly your thing, so I'll leave you to explain it to him. I'm going back to the party."

* * *

❅ **Yuuri**

"Nee-chan!" I complained as Mari-neechan walked away from Viktor and I, leaving us next to the fallen tree whose fall had diverted my path. If Viktor had... had... I couldn't forgive myself if anything happened.

"Yuuri?" Viktor had managed to put his hands on my shoulders, leaning down to put our faces on an equal level. "What's wrong?"

No.

In Detroit, only Phichit ever _got_ it when I tried to explain Shinto, in passing. He came from a religion that supported ancestor spirits himself, and was... more accepting... when he spotted me as I pushed a car out of a blocked car-park.

To know that the supernatural was really out there, though... it's frightening.

Even with Japan and its _hanshin-hangi_ ,6 most people don't want anything to do with the supernatural. Nobody wants it to be _real_ in the sense of monsters eating people. They work really hard to convince themselves that it is not real.

Yuuko-chan and Nishigori had seen one. The funny thing was that the Nishigori family had known, and had not thought too much about it – until the _kappa_ , and then Nishigori had _needed_ to think about it – before he'd promptly locked it out of his mind. They saw a _suiko_. In the hierarchy of water demons, the _suiko_ ranks above the _kappa_ ; it could thus be called the _Oyabun_ of _kappa_. They kill humans to improve their standing amongst themselves and whatever Dragon King they reported to. One had tried to sneak into Ice Castle after dark, and found me. I had thrown it down the mountain atop which Ice Castle stood, but Nishigori and Yuuko had walked in.

We never spoke about it; I left for Detroit the day after. Yuuko-chan had contacted me after with a Skype call, and a quiet 'thanks'. Nishigori... well, he's much friendlier. He also makes it a point to stand behind me or far away from me.

As the hot springs business reached a standstill, and people got older, my parents' social circles had gotten progressively smaller. Our family was regarded with awe and fear, amongst those who knew about Grandpa's and the _yōkai_. The only real family friend around was Minako-sensei, and she's technically half-blooded.

"There were... creatures," Viktor said at last. "Things that... weren't human. You danced Lohengrin for them. And... is Yurio in danger? What did he do?! He just came here!"

"Eh? Ah, apparently... Yurio called Unihime-sama – that's one of the two gods of the Atariûni Shrine – ugly and creepy."

Viktor wilted. "His mouth definitely got him into trouble this time..."

"Ah, I managed to get it commuted. Yurio just needs to undergo ritual purification within-" I pondered, "-the next thirteen days. Preferably at a Zen temple. With Zen sticks. And a waterfall."

"Does he need to knowingly go there?"

"I doubt that. He doesn't know that _yōkai_ exist, does he?" I stopped, trying to translate the word, and giving up. "Viktor... this is, erm- I- it's a family-"

"It's fine. It's all fine," I blushed as his face got way too close to put my head between his head and a tree trunk. "Yuuri, I'm not dumb, so you only get one chance to explain."

"Eh...?"

"I'm your coach, aren't I?" Viktor, please, don't say any more- "What does the word... 'Yo-kai' mean? What kind of relationship did you have with the local _nezhiti_?"

I spent so much effort to hide it from Viktor... I kept hoping that nobody would find out... wasn't that why I moved to Detroit for? And he still found out. Maybe if I body-checked him out of the way?

Viktor must have realised it, for then he stepped back, pulling on my hand. "Ah, it's a family thing, right? So let's ask your parents! After all, we're still staying with them till the Grand Prix final."

Oh... right. Viktor was staying for a long time. Short of asking Grandma to defer her yearly visit, Viktor was still going to meet the person who connected our family to the supernatural anyway.

So much for hoping that he doesn't have to meet Grandma...

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 **1 The Japanese term _Kirishitan,_ from Portuguese cristão, referred to Roman Catholic Christians in Japanese and is used in Japanese texts as a historiographic term for Roman Catholics in Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries.**

 **2 This is a reference to Journey to the West, which is popular in Japan. Genjō Sanzō refers to the monk Tang Xuanzang, who is constantly terrorised by monsters and demons because of a legend which says that one can attain immortality by consuming his flesh, because he is a reincarnation of a holy being.**

 **3 This is a Japanese folktale: When the Dragon King hears that eating a live monkey's liver is the only medicine that will save his queen from dying, he sends his trusted servant fish to cross the ocean, go to monkey-land, and convince a live monkey to return to the Palace. While they are travelling across the ocean, the monkey learns that the king will cut out his liver, and tells the fish that he left his liver hanging on a tree in monkey-land, where they return to find the tree empty. When the fish swims back to the Palace and reports what happened, the king realizes the monkey's deception, and orders his officers to break every bone in the fish's body and beat him to a jelly, which is why jellyfish do not have bones.**

 **4 Another reference to Journey to the West: The Buddha trapped the Monkey King under his hand, which turned into the Five Fingers Mountain and held him there for 500 years.**

 **5 魅力: generally refers to 'charm' of the demonic persuasion. Other equivalents include glamour, hypnosis, possession etc.**

 **6 半信半疑: a Japanese concept that means 'half-believe, half-doubt'. My professor once said that in Japan, you don't quite practice a religion – it's just custom to pray at every Shinto shrine and Buddhist temple that comes your way.**


	9. 八: 時雨

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **八** **:** **時雨**

 **❆Viktor❆**

Magic is real. It exists. And it is holding my hand to lead me out of a forest in Hasetsu, Japan.

"How'd you end up at the shrine?"

"Atarime-hiko showed me."

"I thought so."

"Come again?"

"It's nothing," Yuuri spoke slightly louder. The crunch of the forest underfoot and the moonlight lighting our way might have looked romantic, but the thing behind us was quite the turn-off. Yuuri was still wearing that Japonised Lohengrin costume, and the feathers were so particular in their arrangement, I could not help but reach out and lay my hand across the wings on his back, white receding to black tips.

"Are these real feathers?" I whispered as the prickles of its soft barbs pricked me.

Yuuri fidgeted. "Probably... Madam Kyō – the organiser – knows a lot of people, including some _tennyō_. Er, in English, that's... celestial nymph, I think. They wear feather cloaks to fly to their homes in heaven. Sometimes they descend to earth and take off their _Hagoromo_ – that's the feather cloak."

"Like the swan maidens," I clarified.

"Right!" Yuuri nodded in the gloom of the spring night.

"But..." I frowned, "Mari asked me if I knew what was an Ubume."

" _Nee-chan..._ " Yuuri lapsed into Japanese, probably a mark of the pressure he felt in revealing so many secrets. Well, I don't like secrets, especially if it meant that I had come to a wonderland here and it was deliberately withheld from me.

"An Ubume is a _yōkai_ born from the soul of a woman who died in childbirth," Yuuri started to explain. "It looks like a young woman holding a baby on the roadside. She would ask passers-by to hold the baby, or adopt the baby in exchange for some monetary payment. As these passers-by travel along their way, the baby would grow heavier and heavier, and eventually crush whoever had agreed. If they dropped the baby, the Ubume would kill them. If they left the baby, the Ubume would also kill them. The only way to succeed was to fight the impossible weight and carry it home."

"That sounds like a terrible lady," I started, "but what does this have to do-"

"However," Yuuri continued, "those who managed to continue holding the baby to the end, was said to obtain superhuman strength, at the cost of changing one's connection to the otherworld. That power is called the Ôbō-Jikara. When that strength is used, the illusion of the user's shadow will have four arms. And, that strength passes down from the original holder to all his future descendants."

I froze, recalling how easily Mari had felled that tree with her bare hands. "Mari... is your sister, right?"

"Yes."

"And your parents are Hiroko and Toshiya, right? You're not adopted, right, Yuuri?"

Yuuri stopped walking to look at me. "They're my biological and only parents."

"So..." How do I phrase this... "You have supernatural strength, and you _still_ managed to bomb an athletic competition?"

I could see the stifled wince. "I can't anchor myself too much on the ice."

"There are toe picks," I pointed out.

"I've broken enough toe picks in the ice for Yuuko-chan to fish out," Yuuri shamefully admitted. "And just because I'm strong doesn't mean... that much when I'm not flexible enough."

...alright. I can accept that. The role of body shapes in sports was not a fun topic to talk about. "So... what happened to the Ubume? Your grandfather met an Ubume and saved a kid, right?"

Yuuri winced, squeezing my hand. Somehow, the thought that Yuuri could crush my hand into mincemeat was hardly a deterrent; and neither was the black dog looming in our wake to scare off the nearest few demons and ghosts of the night. "Yeah, that's... right."

I considered the implications for a moment. "So... when Atarime-hiko brought me here... he didn't know about the contest, did he?"

"No."

"Alright, let's leave it at that," I relented. "Does Celestino... know?"

"No..." Yuuri swallowed. "...and why would he guess?"

"You've been a bad boy, Yuuri," I whispered, trying not to jump as another growl echoed. "What else were you hiding from me, mm?"

The black beast, it growled, causing Yuuri's attention to shift away from the little piglet to a ferocious boar. Footsteps echoed behind us – the two of us, the dog's nearly silent padding, and soft thumps.

"After you, Betobeto-san." Yuuri spoke softly, moving the side and pulling me along. The footsteps echoed in front with their invisible maker, the little sounds dying as it went to the distance ahead of us and our loud breathing.

"Viktor. Breathe."

Oh, wait. Those was my ears picking up on my blood rushing through my head.

I screamed as a wet muscly thing brushed my fingers.

" _Gav_." The black beast, the _okuri inu,_ was still there, patiently tugging towards a fork in the road.

"That's strange," Yuuri murmured. "We don't have any local _okuri inu_."

"So what do we do?" I asked, petting the doggy and marvelling at the quality of its curly coat. "Huh... feels like Makkachin."

The black beast growled.

"Viktor. Please let go of my head." Yuuri's muffled words echoed around my arms, from where I had clutched him into my embrace. To protect him. _Da_.

"I guess he doesn't like that name," I trembled, but let go. My arm lingering over Yuuri's hand did not distract my newest protégé from the dog; on the contrary, Yuuri looked at the dog pulling at the hem of my cotton robe.

"He... wants us to follow him?"

"Oh, that's... interesting." I paused. "Should we?"

"Anything dangerous would be at the party tonight, so..." Yuuri shrugged.

We set off at a slow walk, the better to make use of our limited vision to guide us. The dog yipped, barked, and basically acted like Makkachin, except that this dog was far more obedient and intelligent than my own. Overhead, a 'chi, chi' call echoed. Five seconds passed before the same sounds echoed back, far later than it should.

" _Yosuzume_ and _kodama_ ," Yuuri pointed out. "Er... _yosuzume_ is a bird yōkai, and _kodama_ are tree spirits. _Yosuzume_ usually herald the _okuri inu_."

I would have said something, but I really did not want to be eaten.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you get out of Hasetsu safe," Yuuri tacked on, fidgeting. "Because... after tonight, you likely don't want to see me again, or Hasetsu. A- As for the coaching fee-"

"Yuuri, I don't mind that you're... strong," I cut in. "After all, that strength meant nothing in your Grand Prix final. And your friends and family clearly love you enough to... pull me in for a look. Strange or not, human or not, _nechist_ or _nezhit_ , they are your family. Coming to Hasetsu meant that I would have to see them. I am very touched that they care so much for you."

The black dog yipped.

"You love Yuuri too? Yes. Good ghost doggy," I praised. "Besides, I have found a world of wonder with it! What could possibly happen here?"

Yuuri's arm stopped me from planting my face into the side of a small building. I smelt mildew and damp, the signs of zero maintenance since its establishment, basically about the size of one _tatami_ mat.

"Ah, what is this? A... shed? In the middle of the forest?"

The dog started to scratch at the sliding doors, prompting my soothing.

"Inside?" Yuuri reached out to the sliding door. "Sorry for my interruption."

Silence. Yuuri pulled open the door.

I jumped again, grabbing his arm as he screamed and nearly fell down.

"You said not to fall, right, Yuuri! What did you-" I squinted, trying to fight against the pull of Yuuri's weight. The moonlight was weak, but if I squinted a lot...

A moonbeam shifted, almost rivalling the spotlights of a stadium in its intensity as it illuminated matted curly fur, a closed jaw, and torn ears. Wrapped in those straw ropes and folded paper streamers was a jar containing-

" _Bozhe moi_ ," I was very thankful I hadn't called Yurio out to search for Yuuri with me. "Is that a poodle's head?! Just the head?!"

My fingers dug into hair and fur – one each, because even the ghost dog needed assurance.

" _Gav gav_."

Yuuri got up. Something was wrong when he didn't apologise as seemed to be habit, and in fact seemed far more distracted than he should. "V- Vicchan..."

"Eh? Yes?"

"No... not you. My dog." Yuuri's eyes were focused on the dog head turned fetish. "He died before the Grand Prix final. Mum told me. Mum said that he died... but I didn't think... it'll... _like this_! He was my friend!"

I patted his shoulder, and then reconsidered it to pull him towards me. "It's alright, Yuuri. It's alright to cry."

This was a world of wonder... but also one of terror. The wonder and terror formed two sides of the same kind.

Terror always came on the heels of wonder.

* * *

 **❄Yuri❄**

The piggy was listless the next morning, which left me with enough time to bug Viktor...

…who was equally dispirited as he spoke to a policeman in English.

"What the hell happened?" I asked the pig's sister over the bar counter.

"Yuuri and Vicchan found Vicchan's head," she sighed.

"Head? Vicchan?" I jabbed a finger towards Viktor. "He's right there!"

"Oh, I mean Yuuri's dog." She moved some more stuff, and I saw that she was setting out a tray of noodles. "Vicchan – the dog – died on the day of the Grand Prix final. Should have told him afterwards, not before, but it was so sudden... and now someone dug up Vicchan and cut his head off to dry in salt, apparently. Viktor and Yuuri stumbled upon the place where the head was kept in a shrine."

"Eww!" That sounded... morbid. Seriously. This town was messed up. "Why would anyone do that?!"

"That's what I don't understand either," Mari softly murmured. "Yuuri was messed up after Vicchan died, and now this..."

The piggy's not going to be able to skate, was my first thought. That was- underwhelming. Like, terribly underwhelming. For Viktor to have found it... well, it would have ordinarily made a stir in the local news, but this was probably going international. Viktor's reputation would _make_ it international.

"So, where is Yuuri? At the police station?"

"No, he's asleep."

"You've got to be kidding! It's eight! I'm going to wake him up!"

"Well, he got pretty tired after having to identify Vicchan."

I stopped walking. That... "Did Viktor let him sleep in?"

Mari snorted. "Viktor had to take over the digging halfway, and then push Yuuri to bed at four AM."

"...well, it's his dog," I muttered, turning my head to look at the interview. "These things happen at the police station, right? Why here?"

"The press."

"Ah. Noted."

Both men stood up. The policeman bowed and walked off, and Viktor approached the bar and slammed his whole upper body on the counter. "Mari, could I have some _shōchū_? I'll take vodka if you have any."

"No alcohol this early in the day," I hissed at Viktor. "What did they say?"

"Well... their English is borderline awful, but it was mainly time, place, what was I doing, and so on. Oh, and they asked if I recognised the dog." His hand dropped to Makkachin, digging into the hairball's fur. "It's a poodle, I can tell. No idea if it's Yuuri... dog. Awful thing to happen to any pet and owner."

"So the dog's dead... and why did they behead it?"

"No, Vicchan died last year. The vet gave a death cert and all," Mari clarified. "Some sicko dug him up, beheaded him, and then took the head."

"Eww," I repeated.

"You forgot the preservation in salt and wrapping in enough straw ropes and streamers for a traditional shrine," Viktor sighed. "Poor Yuuri... and with the Hot Springs on Ice so close too."

My hackles arose at the tone Viktor used. I turned around, the better to glare at the bastard who was playing with his giant fur-ball of a mutt. "I'm not going to win, aren't I?"

Viktor, very sternly, gave me a look. "The show must go on... so Yuuri must perform. By the way, Mari, do you have a plate of chicken? We have another dog to feed."

Mari blinked. "Another dog?"

* * *

 **❅Yuuri❅**

People ignore things that they don't like.

It's not a bad thing. It is who we are.

The weird stuff does not care about that, though – it keeps on happening. Every family has a ghost story in it – mine has more than most. Everyone has inexplicable experiences.

Nobody talks about it afterwards, though. Those kinds of things... aren't real. If you start saying that they are, you get the weird looks and jackets with extra-long sleeves.

I knew it. I knew it already from the moment I recovered his ashes.

A policeman came around to take our statements, after Viktor called them when we got back to Yū-topia. They had cordoned it off, and taken the... head. I had... I had called it Vicchan.

Would they analyse his DNA, I wonder? Probably not. Dogs are dogs to the police, not entities who stood as the closest friend that I had had.

The door opened. It could have been Dad, Mum, Mari-neechan... even Viktor.

"Yuuri, you have a visitor." Mari-neechan closed the door behind us.

"Katsuki-kun." Elegantly, with the grace of all her millennia of grace, my sister's boss settled on the only chair in the room. She was wearing a business suit, complete with tiny purse. "I bring good news and bad news."

I blankly stared back at her. "What news could you have now?"

"Have you heard of the _inugami_?"

I stared at her. Then I sat up straighter. "V- Vicchan- was-"

"No. That was the good news, but I need your full attention." A paper binder that could not have fitted in that purse materialised. "These are copies of the photographs taken from the Hasetsu police station."

I winced at the glossy pictures. "I'd rather not. What am I looking at?"

"The head was severed after death, as you well know, and then dried for preservation," she explained. "But the salt."

I stared at her. "Huh?"

She gave a sigh. "Salt is _purifying_."

Blink. Blink. "You mean... someone chopped off Vicchan's head to... purify it?" My horror and sadness was gone, replaced by confusion.

"I do not think that was the original intention." Kyō Kaigara murmured. "How much do you know about the _inugami_?"

"Are you supposed to be doing this?" I asked. "We don't have money-"

"I was employed to do some things not even the gods can change," Kyō Kaigara did not deflect from the question. "This is also part of the job."

"Oh..." Atarime-hiko and Unihime could hire her to do this? Was event organiser shorthand for assassin or something?

"Answer me, Katsuki-kun. What do you know about the _inugami_?"

"Er... they're... a _yōkai_ formed with a dog's head, usually." I fidgeted. "And... they're sacrificed to cast a curse on someone. While they bring prosperity through curses and plundering, most summoners cannot maintain it once its powers had grown, and they eventually perish."

"The method is wrong, but the execution is about right," Kyō Kaigara noted. "Amongst humans, _inugami_ are considered a type of _shikigami_ , servant spirits that are summoned and affixed to physical form by an _onmyoji_. Folklore holds that its method of creation goes like this: A common pet dog must be buried up to its neck where only the head remains free. Then, food must be placed in front of it, just out of reach. After several days have passed as the dog is about to succumb, its head must be decapitated, and worshipped in a well-prepared shrine. It is that feeling of grudge created by resentment and appetite that grants the power to curse people to death."

I shuddered. "So... someone managed to create an _inugami_ from Vicchan?"

"Why would your old and faithful hound abandon its home to serve another?"

"Eh? But-" I floundered. "I left Vicchan for five years!"

"Victor the dog knew," Kyō Kaigara blinked at me. "Humans are inferior to demons in the comprehension of non-human languages. Furthermore, having covered the sequence of events before and after your Grand Prix final, there was no chance to kidnap your dog from the safety of the Katsuki home."

Her lips twitched in amusement. "What you saw was therefore a botched ritual at _inugami_ creation, never realising that your Vicchan never had a reason to be invoked, nor to rise from the grave. Techniques like these, when they fail, it comes back upon the practitioner a hundredfold. What they awakened was a dog _yōkai_ , but not a chained _inugami_. They awakened a free _yōkai_ , one which has now been accepted by the _chimimoryō_ as one of their own, and that _yōkai_ is now after them."

 _Chimimoryō_. The demons and monsters of the archipelago, who constitute the Hundred Demons Night Parade.

"Come to think of it," Kyō Kaigara commented, "wasn't it around that time, that the _okuri inu_ appeared?"

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît!**_


	10. 九:水仙

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **An LLS Production**_

* * *

 **九** **:** **水仙**

❆ **Viktor❆**

I had not expected much when I came to Hasetsu.

The fact that Yuuri's family owns a hot springs inn is a pleasant surprise, of course. Ice Castle Hasetsu was even more convenient as a home base for training, as was Minako's ballet studio. However, the real surprise generally wasn't expected in broad daylight.

" _Woof_." " _Gav_."

"You're really having fun, eh, Makkachin?" I teased my pet as she played with the... thing outside. "You know, you don't look like an _okuri inu_ or a man-eating dog."

The other poodle sat back on its haunches, glared at me – yes, it glared – and barked.

"Ah, Viktor, what are you doing?" Yuuri padded down towards me and the front entrance of Yū-topia Akatsuki to find me perched on the highest step of the gate, away from that hell-beast of darkness. Said hell-beast turned away from me to trot over and receive an affectionate pat from Yuuri with a fond look.

Why can't Yuuri give me those looks?

"N- Nothing, just got shocked by his bark." The poodle from hell licked Yuuri's fingers, and Yuuri let him, like it was the most natural move in the world. "I- I thought you were asleep?"

"I was, but... it's strange." Yuuri gave me a small smile, that... "It felt like... like Vicchan came in a dream to scold me."

…

..

.

It took me a while to process what Yuuri had said. For a moment, I thought it was something lost in translation again, until I realised that no matter how that sentence was phrased, it was meant literally.

Hasetsu is a place where the _dukh_ of Japan come to party every Monday, their local protective gods hold flower-viewing parties, and Yuuri's sister has the strength to fell a tree without an axe. Of _course_ Yuuri's late pet would visit his dreams to scold him. How, I had no idea. Presumably they talk. Or presumably doggy dreamland looks like human dreamland.

"Ah, Yuuri!" Yuuri father came over to talk to Yuuri again, carrying an older Japanese man that I left out of my attention. That is, until the hell-beast gave another growl that caused both of them to jump.

The Japanese exchanged words until the older men left, and Yuuri slumped. "Sorry, Viktor. My dad said that a priest would be coming over to conduct rites for Vicchan."

"Really?!" I exclaimed. "You conduct pet funerals in Japan?"

"No, Vicchan's a special case. Dad said that he thought my bad luck was due to..." Yuuri put his face in his hands. "..."

"Sorry?" I leant closer.

The hands moved. "...due to Vicchan placing a curse on us."

My first question was to ask why, since a dog could not be self-aware. Then I chided myself, because certainly Makkachin was being more sensible out of the two of us, so I clearly had no philosophical base to debate on the subject of poodle intelligence. After which, the malicious being from last night crossed my mind. This was followed by an image of Atarime-hiko, Unihime and Yuuri dressed in a cloak of feathers, about to take to the skies.

Oh, I realised. No wonder Yuuri didn't want to tell me. If I was doubting myself afterwards, then how many more before me, without my adult consideration for the students under me, would pay as much credence to Yuuri's words?

It then struck me that, if Mr Katsuki had just realised that his son was being cursed by his dead and departed pet dog returned, then putting its soul – assuming that it has one, the priests back in church had nothing to say on the topic of animals' souls – would be the best thing to do immediately. It also struck me that this was done with minimal fuss or questioning, which is even more amazing.

Or perhaps, Mr Katsuki had just seen literally everything in running an inn.

Yuuri sighed. "I'm sorry you had to-"

"It's fine," I cut him off. I don't think I was ever as wild as to merit Yakov pulling a dead and preserved dog's head in bandages out of a shrine in the middle of a full-moon night. At least. "But, are you alright?"

"..." Yuuri's weighted shifted from one leg to the other. His hands twitched. "I guess. I... think I'll run around Hasetsu once before I go to Ice Castle." His head turned. "Are you coming along?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but the hell-beast _barked_. And it glared. Surely it- oh, it growled, causing us all to jump.

"I... gotta call Yurio." I fled.

"Viktor?!"

I didn't reply. I was too busy fleeing. Makkachin's bark echoed behind me. I closed the door behind me, the flimsy barrier erected between me and that hell-beast... which I had to fight for Yuuri's attention.

Right, I did say that I was going to call Yurio first... after I dig out my luggage. Did I bring Mama's cross?

As I pondered that, a thought occurred to me, about a cloak of crane feathers, a red helmet, and winged Lohengrin swooping in to champion the fair damsel.

 _Ah... I can't give Yuuri the Agape._

* * *

❅ **Yuuri❅**

I arrived at Ice Castle with the poodle _okuri inu_ in tow. He was... is so obedient. So affectionate.

He's still here.

I knelt down at the steps leading up to the glass doors, to look into his eyes. "Did you come back for us... Vicchan?"

" _Wan_."

I giggled as he licked the finger I extended. "Eh... I know. Does Mum and Dad know?"

A solemn nod.

"I see... Kyō-sama told them?"

" _Wan_."

"You came back... to find your killer, right?"

A pause. " _Arf_."

"You can't eat people, alright, Vicchan?" I paused. "And I can't let Viktor know that I named him after you-"

" _Grr_."

"Ahaha, you like your name, of course." I gave him a belly rub as Vicchan rolled over, tongue lolling out. "I have practice, though. Can you make your own way back?"

Vicchan didn't listen, or found it convenient not to, since Yuu-chan's next words were: "Ah, did Viktor's dog follow you to practice, Yuuri?"

I looked down. A pink tongue lolled innocently at me.

"Very funny." I looked back to Yuu-chan. "Erm... well, we found Vicchan's head."

Yuu-chan dropped her pen. " _What_?"

She stood in silence through the abridged summary of events I gave her, and when I finished, she sank down on the floor behind the counter. When she got up a second later, it was with a pale expression.

"Someone tried to use Vicchan to make an _inugami_?!"

"Keep quiet!" I hissed, flailing. "K- I mean, Mari-neechan is using her contacts, and so far they've confirmed that the ritual failed, so... yeah. But..." my hand pointed down. "He came back..."

Yuu-chan blinked at the spectral dog. My spectral dog blinked back. " _Arf_."

"Who would do such a thing?!" Yuu-chan looked askance. "Erm... so, the _okuri inu_ around here..."

"Is Vicchan." I looked around before I asked her: "Did you know if... people were attacked?"

"Not at all!" Yuu-chan looked down at Vicchan. "It was just strange. When _yōkai_ move out of their natural habitat... that's due to humans. You came back to find that person, right... Vicchan?"

" _Arf_."

Yuuko shuddered. "An inugami is a danger to everyone in town, not just one house. For what it's worth... I hope you find him."

" _Woof_!" Vicchan's tongue lolled out.

"And, Yuuri-kun, I hope Vicchan can support you!" Yuu-chan forced a smile.

"Yes... thank you." The words of the _daiyōkai_ that Mari-neechan had allied with came back to me in an instant.

"To create an _inugami_ , any pet dog would do," Kyō-sama had explained then. "Your Vicchan was of no use, from a magical point of view, for the grudge needed to craft an _inugami_."

"However, we found his head, the remnants of a botched ritual, and signs of Vicchan's... transition," I reasoned. "Why would he... use Vicchan?"

Kyō Kaigara frowned at me. "That is the wrong question, young Katsuki. The first error is assuming that Vicchan itself had to do with the choice of creating an _inugami_. The second was to assume that this was the first attempt."

She said nothing more, letting me think my way through. Mari-neechan shot her a look. "Can't you just tell him?"

Cheep. Cheep. Even crickets would have given me a more straightforward answer.

I thought about it, since she wasn't going to give me more answers. If Vicchan wasn't the actual target, then why use an _inugami_ at all? Creating an inugami cursed the entire bloodline, turning the family line into an _inugami-mochi_ family, a subset of _tsukimono-suji_. While such families are feared and envied for the ability to steal happiness from others, creating one in western Japan was just asking for the cops to pay special attention if word got out.

So, my erroneous assumptions were:

1\. Vicchan was deliberately targeted.

2\. This was the first attempt-

"Wait, if... whoever's behind this tried this before, then why weren't we hit?" I spoke up. "And why didn't Unihime tell us? Never mind, I know, the rules of the _kami_ ," I cut in as she opened her mouth. "So... all previous attempts didn't succeed, or were negligible. And the only reason we noticed now is because this person is escalating. And the only reason to escalate at all is... because those attempts failed too."

My eyes fell onto Mari-neechan and Kyō-sama. "Because we were protected?"

"Considering that you run an inn frequented by both humans and _yōkai_ , is it so hard to imagine that we protect our own?" Kyō-sama gave a throaty laugh.

"The only reason to resort to the taint of employing animal spirits is to combat animal spirits," I realised. "The escalation is because... that person thinks we're _tsukimono-suji_ , and that... V- Vicchan was a _tsukimono_."

In Shinto, almost anything can possess a human. When they do, they are all known by a single name— _tsukimono_ , the Possessing Things. This is rarely a spontaneous event—often, the _yōkai_ possesses the human as an act of revenge, or simple greed, or for reasons are as innumerable as the _yōkai_ themselves. The most terrifying thing was, such _yōkai_ could be bribed into employment by a human family—these were the _tsukimono-suji_. Often, the _nouveaux riches_ were labelled as such families – for there was no other sensible explanation for their leap from rags to riches.

"Why would he think that?!" I asked. "We're running a run-down inn!"

"You're running the only inn that has managed to survive a town slowly dying, and is currently being revitalised by the arrival of your skating idol," Kyō Kaigara pointed out. "You know, when they say that someone is 'possessed by good fortune', they mean _our_ kind of possessed. What your enemy wants is to remove this without anyone suspecting him of his crimes. So, during these seven days where everyone is pouring in for the Hot Springs on Ice, he will definitely make a move..."

"...move, Yuuri?"

"Huh?!" I snapped out of my daydream – there was Viktor, and there was...

...right.

Viktor is finally going to start teaching me today. Whether or not this is my last season rides on this. Vicchan is watching me from the sidelines. If I wimp out here... I'll never win.

The "Hot Springs on Ice", and after that, the Grand Prix final...!

These seven days...

* * *

❄ **Yuri❄**

One more week to that fucking contest. Hot Springs on Ice, who does that?! And now Viktor's distracted and everyone's frazzled because of the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. By which I meant the dog's head. God, the sooner I can get out of this creepy town the better-

"Yurio! Let's go!"

"Huh? Huh?!" I exclaimed as Viktor came to the open bar where I was checking my phone. It was eight, and the news was on-

"Yuuri said that he'll catch up later," Viktor was smiling, but he looked... tired. "I talked it over with Mari, and they're leaving it up to me."

Right. Because exercise can overcome any horror you found when your pet dog's head was stuck by some psycho in a shrine. "Oh? He finally got off his ass."

"How do I say it... he wants to do it, and... the show must go on," Viktor's face shut off slightly. "This is also a trial of willpower."

I stood up. "I got it."

Don't blame me, piggy. Blame your own terrible luck.

The fatso was daydreaming through Agape. I dearly wanted to as well. It was sweet and boring, no wonder. Viktor called him out, and a stab of vindictiveness that rippled across my skin was only slightly dampened by the fact that Viktor was being extra nice – since the fatso's mutt was actually sitting by the sidelines.

"It's... very innocent..." I tuned out the rest of his words.

Viktor finally played a piece with a danceable beat.

"Viktor, I wanna skate to this piece!" I shouted.

Viktor hit the pause button. "The first piece is 'On Love: Agape'. Its theme is unconditional love. And this piece is 'On Love: Eros'. The theme is sexual love. I'll have you two skate to these opposing themes."

Then the bastard did something that I would never expect of him:

"Yuuri, you'll skate to 'Eros'! And Yurio, you'll do 'Agape'!"

"SWITCH THEM!"

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_


	11. 拾: 枯葉

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

 _ **A/N: I think it's safe to assume that nobody was expecting Episode 7. Neither was I. So accept this as my flailing response! – LLS**_

* * *

 **拾** **:** **枯葉**

❆ **Viktor❆**

Was this a good idea?

I don't know. I should've asked Yakov about situations like this. True, I don't know any skater who would have reported being haunted.

Neurotic, perhaps.

No, I firmly decided. Yuuri's problems were not something to be solved immediately. That's like assuming that Canada would never get the gold in Winter Olympics men's figure skating1. Or that the _Sports Illustrated_ cover jinx is real2. Or...

...putting aside Yuuri and his little black beast from hell, the competition won't wait. It's painful, but I have to be the coach here!

"So, I'll show you guys the routines first," I decided, chivvying the two off of the ice and manipulating the sound remote.

First, Yurio's 'On Love: Agape'.

 _Agape_... unconditional love. God's infinite love is self-sacrificing and uncalculating. It is a winged and feathered cloak of white and black tips, helmed in red and gliding across the lake, the crane prince.

... _chassé crossé_ would work better here. Yurio doesn't have the leg length.

"So, it's kinda like that," I explained once I'd finished Agape. "What d'you think?"

"Yeah, I pretty much got it."

Damn brat. If Mrs Nishigori hadn't appeared in the middle of practice... Alas, I'm fairly sure the rink employees are contractually bound to prevent homicide.

I decided to ignore him to show Yuuri 'Eros'. Sexual love. To drown in a succession of pleasure unto pleasure. Set off by a spark of flame, running into a moonlit night, chased by a black beast and saved by a hand from the darkness-

Ah, maybe up to here is good. I paused the music. "Yuuri, how was it?"

My student began to panic – clearly he hadn't been paying much attention. "Uhm, er... It was very erotic!"

"Isn't that right?" I prompted him. I wouldn't ask this of Yurio, but for Yuuri... "So, for the program composition, which quads can you land?"

"The toe loop, and... I can land the Salchow in practice, but never in competition- um, I think I can do it if I try!"

I assigned him basic training.

I was planning to do that anyway, but this just confirmed my thoughts. How many times has he messed up? He clearly has the skill to win, so why couldn't he make it happen? My job as your coach is to make you feel confident in yourself even if there's ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties coming after you.

Maybe not that. Maybe...

No, this would push Yuuri out of his comfort zone. Yuuri clearly needed a challenge. His rationality needed to be broken and reassembled along with whatever was stopping him from winning – including his anxiety. Even if your opponent is a curse, curses can be broken. Love conquers all, but you need the confidence to win first.

"Think long and hard about what _eros_ is to you, alright?" I murmured to his blotchy red face.

Why is he blushing? Was the Japanese blood pressure a problem?

Now, Yurio. Unihime said that he needed to visit a temple, get hit by Zen sticks, and bathe in a waterfall, right...? This brat just got Yuuri's family making arrangements over him, it'll almost be fun.

* * *

❅ **Yuuri❅**

In the song, there is a story.

A playboy comes to a certain town and bewitches the women left and right. He decides to pursue the most beautiful woman in town, but she isn't swayed. Then, as they play the game of romance, she finds it difficult to make the right choices and ends up falling for him. Then he casts her aside as though he's tried of her, and goes off to the next town.

"That doesn't really sound like you," Nishigori immediately stated once I'd elaborated on the story of Eros.

"Right?!" I waved. "I bet people would say that they'd prefer to see Viktor skate the program."

"But you looked pretty sexy in the video when you copied his program."

"Well, I can't copy him," I refused. "I'll never surpass him by doing that."

Nishigori blinked. "Wait, you seriously think you can surpass him someday?"

"Huh?" I realised. "Oh- Oh, no, not at all-!"

"I mean, how can someone as inexperienced in dating as you beat the hottest bachelor in the world?"

Nishigori, I know you meant well, but did you have to say it like that?

The question haunted me through off-ice training, walking Vicchan, even all the way to the baths. I mean, I'm an adult male of twenty-three years. I could totally show off mature sexiness if I wanted to!

Viktor walked into the open-air baths, totally blowing away any expectations I could have had. From a physical standpoint, I doubt that I'm even close to _eros_. It's that thing which causes people to lose their rationality, right?

Laughter erupted from the bar halfway through dinner. I sat up immediately. "Is it- wait, Monday was yesterday. No way-"

The bar door slid open.

"My apologies, but I brought Mari back," Kyō Kaigara floated in, with another attendant carrying Mari-neechan through the bar. "The _oni sake_ was quite strong."

Viktor stopped eating. I saw him about to point, and just barely held down his hand. Viktor floundered until I shook my head.

"This is..." I paused.

"Hamasaki Nanami," Kyō-sama pulled a name-card out of her purse, presenting it with both hands. When she next spoke, I had to shake my head, because it was in Russian. " _Dobro pozhalovat' v Yaponiyu_."

"Charmed," Viktor took one hand and bowed his head over it, much like an English gentleman. "If I recall..."

Kyō-sama's wrist turned, and she grabbed Viktor's wrist in response. "I _don't_ know you." She smoothly began to speak.

Viktor blinked, quickly, and then slowly. "Right... My mistake."

Both hands let go, and Viktor sat back down.

"The _katsudon_ is delicious," Kyō-sama prompted.

"Yes..." A pink tongue curled over his bottom lip.

"Oi, Viktor!" Yurio complained, but I could see – or sense – something... weird going on. Her eyes haven't left his. If I didn't know what she was-

Vicchan barked. The spell was broken, as Viktor wobbled in his seat.

"Uhm, Kyō-sama?"

Kyō-sama blinked. "Follow me, Katsuki-kun."

Viktor's eyes rolled back into his head, and he shuddered as I walked with her into the inside of the inn, into my family's quarters. Kyō-sama arranged herself in seiza, with Mari-neechan laid out next to her.

"What did you do to Viktor?" I tried to keep the shaking from my voice. I had been so obsessed with Viktor's physical safety, I forgot what would happen if he accidentally talked to a _gitsune_ , a _Kuchisake-Onna_ or a _Yuki-Onna_ 3\. If they managed to extract a marriage promise from him, it would never end.

"Nothing," Kyō-sama evenly replied. "He is a normal human after all, to fall for _miryoku_ at this level."

" _Miryoku_?" I echoed.

"Demons and monsters sometimes attract humans using their magical power," Kyō-sama began. "This magical power is called _miryoku_ – written with the character 'mi', and the Kanji for power. If I'm right, you Japanese use the verb ' _miwaku suru_ ' – with the meaning of attraction or captivation. Have you noticed? The 'mi' character in that verb is the same 'mi' in _chimimoryō_ – the demons and monsters of Japan."

I thought about it. She was right. The characters for _miryoku_ (魅力) did share characters for the four-letter idiom of 'monsters of the mountains and rivers' (魑魅魍魎), and was related to the verb for 'captivate' (魅惑する). "Never mind the grammar lesson. Is it permanent?"

"No. He just fell for my charm," the last word became a caress. "A general all-purpose _omamori_ for avoiding evil would work," she offered.

I sighed. "Thank you."

"No, it was my fault for exposing my demonic charm on these premises," Kyō-sama moved to stand. "I was entertaining in a party of _oni_ , and I forgot-"

"Uhm... actually..." I fidgeted. "About this week's competition-"

"I have tickets."

"You do?!"

She blinked at me. "Minako arranged for me to... look in. Since there are few avenues to enjoy Western arts..." she shrugged.

"Ah..." I looked down. "How much would it cost me to consult you about... my program?"

Kyō-sama drew a breath. "Oh."

"I- It's fine," I tried, but she had already leant over until her body was almost parallel to the _tatami_.

"Now, that, nobody has ever asked me that," she murmured. "Hmm... how much do you remember what we spoke during the winter party?"

"Erm... on ballet?" I fidgeted.

Kyō-sama pulled a pout. "I have few people to talk to about Western arts. Once a week, I will consult you."

"I'll help you out," I sighed. That was relatively cheap.

Then again, all addictions to that world tend to start like that.

"It's... I'm competing against Yurio. We're skating to two different arrangements of the same song, on love. Viktor assigned Agape to him, and Eros to... me."

I risked looking at her full in the face, regardless of the supernatural charm she apparently wore. Kyō-sama thought. She smiled again, and then her expression changed, her features growing remote. Her shoulders eased into relaxation, and then her eyes opened: shining like the underside of an abalone. She stared into the far distance for several moments, her breath rate slowing.

Her eyes started moving, as if she were reading a book. Then they snapped back to earth, leaving the barest hint of a rainbow lighting up her dark pupils.

"I might be rather out of date with regards to Western concepts," she started, "but from my understanding, _eros_ helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth."

"Uhm... I'm talking about sexual love," I fidgeted. "From my understanding, _eros_ is the kind of feeling that leads people to lose their ability to make normal decisions. So... I don't know how to show that feeling. I mean, I lose out physically."

"Mortal standards of beauty changes with the times," Kyō-sama stated. "I think you're quite handsome by Tang Dynasty standards."

"Thanks?" I hazarded, though I didn't want to be held to beauty standards a few centuries out of date. "But... I don't know that feeling, Kyō-sama."

"Call me Kyō-san, or Kaigara-san," my sister's boss ordered. "Are you asking for seduction advice?"

"No! Not at all!" I waved my hands in a collective refusal, the better to show how much I refused. "I thought, demonic _miryoku_ could give me some insight into what makes people lose their inhibitions to make irrational decisions,"

"Ah, so it's like that." Kyō-san huffed. "I got it."

"Really?"

"Japanese borrowed a number of four-character idioms from Chinese," Kyō-san started. "Amongst them is _keiseikeikoku_ (傾城傾国). If we're talking about losing rationality, then toppling countries and dynasties should work."

"Nobody needs to lose rationality to that extent!" I protested. "How is that a good thing?"

"You're forgetting that you're asking a _yōkai_ , one of the _chimimoryō_ ," Kyō-san reminded me. "What is violence and fear for humans is feeding and largesse to us. Your pain is our gain."

That was... fair.

She was what she was – a being of violence, deceit and the thirst of power. Her attitudes and reactions could not fairly be called inhuman when she wasn't human to start with. Then again, that would presume that all non-human peoples were incapable of niceness and kindness.

"Yes, so can we please discuss this from a human perspective? I'm fairly sure that even a great _daiyōkai_ like you can manage that."

Kyō-san looked caught out. "Very well."

"For human sensuality... Dakki is the main example when we think of castle-destroying beauties, but I can only think of Seishi, Ō-Shōkun, Chōsen and Yōkihi.4" She paused. "They're all female, if that's a problem?"

"I... I'll get to that," I nearly face-faulted. "What about handsome men?"

"Handsome men..." Her eyes lidded over. "In the Tang Dynasty, it was a scandal when the Crown Prince left Chang'an with his catamite-"

"What? Wait, no, don't elaborate, I don't want to know," I groaned. "What about handsome Japanese men?"

She thought. "Oda Nobunaga was fairly handsome," she offered at last. "And Mori Ranmaru was quite a looker..."

"So now I have dead samurai to choose from?"

"Yoshitsune and Benkei?"

"I give up, please stick to the female examples." I studied her. "There's really no other option?"

"I can get Dakki on speed-dial if you like," Kyō-san frowned. "You have to understand, though, that we don't form attachments the way humans do. So we can live and breathe lust and have men falling over their feet to serve us, but that doesn't actually mean that we can inspire the kind of love that causes you to lose all rationality and still help you. There's only... one."

Her eyes fully closed. "Liu Xiu and Yin Lihua. I knew them before they became royalty. They had about thirty years to work through their marital problems on top of managing an empire."

"Eh?" Standing before Kyō-san made me feel small and insignificant. In the entire face of her entire lifespan, we humans were literally mayflies. "Managing... an empire?"

"Because it's not enough for one man to get his dream job of city mayor and marry his childhood sweetheart and the love of his life, no," Kyō-san carried a look on her face that now, I could recognise, was _envy_. "He had to establish the Eastern Han Dynasty of China with it."

Her eyes fell on Mari-neechan, who was still sleeping beside me.

"It's their kind of relationship that you want to find for yourself, standing on the outside looking in," she reflected. "But with magic, you never know if the person you've charmed is in love with you because of you, or because you've charmed their minds, you know?"

I struggled to get up. "You've been a great help. Thank you, Kyō-san."

I was never going to use any of her information. Eros would be hard enough to carry off without the baggage of thousands of years behind it.

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 _ **1 The Canadian curse is more a media invention, stating that Canada would never win gold at the Winter Olympics despite landing the top stages at other top figure-skating competitions.**_

 _ **2 The Sports Illustrated cover jinx is an urban legend that states that individuals or teams who appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine will subsequently be jinxed (experience bad luck). Wikipedia has a full list of examples.**_

 _ **3 In order: gitsune are shape-shifting foxes. Kuchisake-Onna is a slit-mouthed female yōkai that specialises in facial dismemberment. Yuki-Onna are female yōkai of the snow that prey on travellers lost in the heavy snowstorms in winter.**_

 _ **4 These are the Japanese names for the Four Beauties of Ancient China: Xi Shi, Wang Zhaojun, Diaochan, and Yang Guifei.**_


	12. 拾壱: 除夜

_**The Winter of the Ubume**_

* * *

 **拾壱** **:** **除夜**

 **❆Viktor❆**

" _Dobro pozhalovat' v Yaponiyu_."

The moment I heard those words was the point at which I must have been caught. Suddenly my eyes were held in glad and incredulous surprise. There came floating a goddess.

There was really no other word for it. The perfect features, the dark hair, the exquisitely shaped body in a business suit. She walked like a goddess, floating without effort, seeming to swim nearer and near. A glorious, an incredible, a breath-taking girl!

Something had to go. In my excitement, there went my rationality. I had seen here before, right? "If I recall-"

She held my wrist. "I don't know you."

"Right... my mistake," I regrouped myself. I wouldn't mind knowing her.

She let go, and I fell on rubbery legs back onto the ground. "The _katsudon_ is delicious," her comment floated through the buzzing in my ears.

I agreed – the _katsudon_ here was made for the gods. I would have agreed to anything to stay in her presence-

A bark sliced through the haze, causing me to jump.

"What's up with you, Viktor?! And when did Makkachin multiply?!" Yurio complained as my throbbing headache set in. And Yuuri...

Yuuri was following her inside.

I'd seen her before – at the party. The party of demons and monsters. It did not take too much to realise that anything I had felt in that moment where she spoke to me was some _nechistaya sila_.

The black beast of hell continued to growl actively, though its back was to me right now. Though I didn't like its fighting with me for Yuuri's attention, I had to admit that it had saved me. But its growls increased in volume as I stood up.

"I have to get Yuuri," I pointed out.

It shook its whole body.

"Yuuri's under her evil influence," I pointed out.

"Huh? Viktor, what're you saying?" Yurio demanded, slamming his fist onto the table. The broccoli bounced as he did so.

"I have to get Yuuri."

"The pig's an adult, he can take care of himself."

"No, I have to get Yuuri!" I insisted before the door opened once more.

"Sorry, Hamasaki-san needed help with Mari-neechan," Yuuri said as he walked in, sat down and kept eating. "Viktor?"

"You... you followed her and- and-" I stared at him.

"Oi," Yurio laughed at him. "So, how does your sister know a lady like that?"

"Mari-neechan works part-time for her," Yuuri's eyes fell to Yurio. "She doesn't date kids, so give up."

"I- I didn't say anything!" Yurio fiercely defended.

Oh. Yuuri didn't want to mention it in front of Yurio. "But you were very excited talking to Yuuko today, Yurio. Just remember that she's married, alright?"

"Shut _up_ , Viktor!"

* * *

 **❅Yuuri❅**

I waited outside the repurposed banquet room that Viktor had taken over for however long he was going to stay – six days, until the end of the Grand Prix, or he'd left five minutes after being magically hypnotised.

I don't know which option to hope for.

There were other things to reply to. Phichit-kun had found out about Vicchan's... head... and was spamming me with all sorts of offers – his mother recommended a _bomoh_ , apparently. Celestino sent his regards, with an oblique reference that his Italian-American grandmother had dropped some questions about my well-being. Since said old lady was apparently part of the Sicilian _strega_ tradition, I felt disinclined to accept her help, however well-meaning.

The doors opened before I could knock, and a hand dragged me inside.

"Yuuri, only Aeroflot has kept me waiting for as long as you have," Viktor shut the door. "How was the funeral?"

"Ah? A- Ah, it's on hold, pending an investigation," I swallowed. "Erm... about Hamasaki-san, sorry for letting you get caught-"

"W- _What_ was that?" Viktor's eyes narrowed, his hands still caught on the lapels of my shirt in the tight grip of panic. "It felt like... I lost all my senses?"

"It's a... charm," I decided. "You know how, in fiction, vampires and the like make themselves look more attractive than they should?"

Viktor nodded. " _Glamúr_. In English, glamour. Another form of _nechistaya sila_ – devilry."

"We call that _miryoku_ in Japanese – supernatural attractiveness," I explained, thankful for once that the English language's messiness meant that there was a word for most things, even if it didn't have _kigo_ or the expansiveness of other idioms. "It wasn't deliberate, I swear!"

"But you weren't affected?" Viktor seemed to ignore any danger to himself in favour of peering at my eyes. "I need a light."

"Huh?" I blinked as he moved to switch on all the LED lamps in his room. "No, I'm good. Our family's shrine has power, and there's other rules involved when the _yōkai_ come into contact with the hosts of an inn. Erm, I understand if you feel unsafe, I'm sorry, I completely forgot to get you an _omamori_ for protection against evil at the shrine, I thought the shrine's assurance would be enough-"

"Yuuri, calm down." Viktor was smiling, his mouth forming a little heart-shape in his saccharine cheer. "Well, Yurio went to the temple today, and later this week he'll be going to the waterfall. As for me, I'll try not to speak to unnaturally attractive women. And tomorrow, we can go visit the shrine again! I haven't been there during the daytime, it'll be fun!"

Because there aren't monsters there in the daytime, I wanted to say, but he was leaning close again. "I'm so happy I get to learn some more about you, Yuuri." His breath brushed past my cheek – he'd brushed his teeth.

Much as I wanted to marvel some more at his dental hygiene, Viktor then sat back down on his couch – the one that he'd had flown all the way from Russia – with Makkachin. "But, do... those amulets work? Not to offend you..."

"Ah... I don't know," I confessed in confusion. Actually, that's a valid question. "Erm... are you practising?"

"Might have lapsed," Viktor ruefully admitted. "I would however like to know if sacraments of different faiths... cancel out."

"Maybe for others, but Shinto is a bit... nebulous," I wiggled my fingers to make the point. "You can believe in multiple gods, you can believe that they're all different facets of the same god, but they're all there to help humans. I don't think God – the Christian one – would mind borrowing some help from the gods in another country."

I mean, I might not follow any organised religion or believe in a deity – Atarime-hiko and Unihime don't count, since I know them. I would make it a point to find _osechi_ in New Year, drop by an Obon celebration when I could find one in the United States, and Phichit and I once went to celebrate – or, more accurately, to gatecrash – a Vesak Day celebration together along the north-east.1

"Okay!" Viktor looked excited. "It'll be my first shrine visit."

"Erm... you're not... offended, right?"

"I'm sure I can keep an open mind," Viktor cheerfully replied. "As long as nothing like that dog's head appear again."

It'll be fine. There is no way that not observing the traditions would screw things up. Sure, the _miyamairi_ was held for newborns, but this was Viktor!2 Unihime would surely understand.

"So, have you found your _eros_?"

"Ah..." How would he react if I said that I had to ask Kyō-san? Though I already decided that her help was kind of pointless, since I can't use magic. "I..."

"That demonic charm looks effective," Viktor mused. "Perhaps it'll make even your head spin."

"I'm not going to do that!"

Viktor froze on his couch, blinking. Makkachin barked as a scratching sounded by the door. A low growl echoed.

"It's fine, Vicchan." I tried not to look at Viktor's face as I turned back to talk through the _shōji_ screens of Viktor's room. The growl stopped, and I turned back. "Viktor... that _miryoku_ could not be _eros_ to me. Because, to me, _eros_ is a certainty. It is something solid to chase after, not a dream! I- I want to eat _katsudon_ with Viktor! So...! So... that's it for me..."

"What? What is it?!" Viktor pressed me, so I gave the answer straight.

"It's _katsudon_!"

A thump resounded.

"Viktor?! How'd you fall off the couch?! I'm sorry!"

"No, nothing... that's... its uniqueness just... blew me. Right..."

* * *

 _ **Critiquez, s'il vous plaît !**_

 **1 Sometimes informally called "Buddha's Birthday", it actually commemorates the birth, enlightenment and death of Gautama Buddha in the Theravada or southern tradition. Though I don't know much about the US, I checked that Detroit has a fairly significant Asian-American population who probably brought their customs and festivals along. For Phichit and Yuuri, Vesak Day would probably be a familiar sight – though in Japan, Vesak celebrations include pouring amacha on statues, which is what we do in Singapore as well. You don't really gatecrash a Vesak Day celebration since they're a time when Buddhist temples are far busier.**

 **2 Miyamairi is a traditional Shinto rite of passage in Japan for newborns. Approximately one month after birth, parents and grandparents bring the child to a Shinto shrine, to express gratitude to the deities for the birth of a baby and have a shrine priest pray for his or her health and happiness.**

 **From my understanding, Japanese religion is more spiritual than religious – you can don't believe in them, but you still have to do those family rituals. This is the country that, might I remind you, has people born into Shinto, married as Christian, and buried with Buddhist rites.**

 **Opinions might differ, but let me clarify that no, Viktor is not converting.**


End file.
